THE 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD 



AND THEIR 



RELATIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. 



BT 



FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A., 
it 

CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN, AND PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN 
KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON. 



" That which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath 
showed it unto them." — Romans i. 19. 



PROM THE 

THIRD REVISED LONDON EDITION. 



BOSTON: 
GOULD AND LINCOLN, 

59 WASHINGTON STREET. 

1854. 



-33UO 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

Gould and Lincoln, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



PREFACE. 



The substance of these Lectures was delivered, ac- 
cording to the directions of Boyle's will, in one of 
the London churches, on the first Mondays of certain 
months in the years 1845 and 1846. Though it is not 
imperative on the preacher to print his Discourses, it 
has been the custom to do so. Indeed, the intention of 
the founder seems to be scarcely fulfilled by address- 
ing a series of Sermons on subjects requiring Some 
attention, at distant intervals, to the eight or ten per- 
sons who in the present times compose an ordinary 
week-day congregation. In preparing them for publi- 
cation I have omitted the texts, which were little 
more than mottoes, and have altered the forms of 
language which belong especially to pulpit compo- 
sition. 

The object of the Lectures will, I hope, be suffi- 
ciently intelligible to those who read them. But it is a 



duty to speak of some writers who have discussed the 
same subjects, and to whom I am indebted. 

In the first Lecture I have not touched upon the 
question which is considered in Mr. Forster's Mahome- 
tanism Unveiled. My business was with popular 
views upon the subject, not with learned and ingeni- 
ous speculations. Of Mr. Forster's theory I do not 
feel competent to express an opinion ; so far as it evin- 
ces a desire to deal fairly with facts which Christian 
apologists have often perverted, and a confidence, that 
the cause of Christianity must be the better for such 
fairness, it must, I am sure, have done good, even 
if the basis upon which it rests should be found un- 
tenable. 

Mr. Carlyle's Lecture on Mahomet in his Hero 
Worship, is probably much better known to my read- 
ers than Mr. Forster's treatise. Some persons may 
have been led by that Lecture to identify Mahometan- 
ism with reverence for the person of Mahomet ; they 
will strongly object to the sentiments which I have ex- 
pressed in one passage of this book. But I do not 
anticipate any such objection from Mr. Carlyle him- 
self. No writer has more distinctly recognized the 
Islamite principle of subjection to an absolute Will as 
the vital one in this faith ; or has exhibited a more 
earnest, I had nearly said a more exclusive, veneration 



for that principle. A man seems to him to be strong 
or weak, admirable or contemptible, precisely as he is 
possessed by it, or as he substitutes some notion of hap- 
piness, some theory of the Universe, in place of it. 
Those who feel that they are under the deepest obliga- 
tion to Mr. Carlyle for the power with which he has 
brought the truth of this principle to their minds, for 
the proofs which he has given that, as much in the 
seventeenth century as in the seventh, it could break 
down whatever did not pay it homage, cannot be per- 
suaded to look upon any phrases of his which appear 
to convey an opposite impression, however much they 
may be quoted, however partial he may seem to them 
himself, as the most genuine expressions of his mind. 
They rather recognize in these phrases an attempt, 
confessedly unsuccessful, to bridge over the chasm 
which separates, as Mr. Carlyle thinks, the ages in 
which this faith could be acted out from our own, in 
which it has become only a name. That no phrases 
or formulas, from whatever period or country they 
may be borrowed, can accomplish this object, Mr. 
Carlyle is a sufficient witness ; that it must be accom- 
plished in some way, his lamentations over the present 
state of the world abundantly prove. Those who think 
that it is the first duty of an author to provide them 
with sunshine, find these lamentations intolerable ; 



VI PREFACE. 

there are some who seem to be pleased with them, as 
they might be with any unusually strong exhibition of 
passion upon the stage. There are others who hear in 
his wailings the echoes of their own saddest convic- 
tions, but who for that reason cannot be content to 
spend their time merely in listening to them or repeat- 
ing them. One who desires to lead an honest life, and 
learns that men in former days were honest, because 
they believed in a Personal Being, who is, and was, 
and is to come, must ask himself whether such a belief 
has become impossible for him. And if we are as- 
sured by Mr. Carlyle that under the conditions of Ma- 
hometanism or even of Christian Puritanism it is now 
impossible, then we must again ask, Why so ? Is it 
because the truth which made these faiths so energetic 
is not what it was, or is it because it dwelt in them 
apart from other truths, without which, in our days, it 
can scarcely even exist, much less live ? These ques- 
tions may never present themselves to a dilettante ad- 
mirer of Mr. Carlyle ; those whom his writings have 
really moved, and who regard him with hearty, though 
perhaps silent, gratitude and affection, are, I know, 
haunted by them continually. If these Lectures should 
lead any one such questioner even to hope for an an- 
swer, they will do the work for which I especially de- 
signed them. 



In illustration 'of the remark that the Mahometan 
conquerors were not merely " Scourges of God," how- 
ever they may have deserved that title, I would sug- 
gest to the reader a comparison of their wars with 
those of Zinghis Khan. May I advise him also to read 
with some attention the passage in Gibbon (Chap. 
LXIV. Vol. XI. pp. 391, 392, 8vo Ed.) on the philo- 
sophical religion of that Mogul whom Frederic II., the 
accomplished Suabian, the enemy of Popes, the sus- 
pected infidel, denounced as the common foe of man- 
kind, against whom he invoked a crusade of all prin- 
ces? Gibbon's panegyric, illustrated as it is by his 
faithful narrative of the proceedings of Zinghis Khan 
and his successors in Persia, Russia, Hungary, &c, 
of their incapacity to preserve a record of their own 
acts, and their ultimate conversio n by the bigoted 
Mussulman, is full of the deepest instruction. 

In connection with the remarks upon the constitu- 
tion of Mahometan society as exhibited in the Ottoman 
Empire, I would recommend the study of Ranke's 
excellent Essay upon that subject in his Fiirsten und 
Volken. 

The second Lecture is a collection of hints which 
may not, I hope, be quite useless to some whose per- 
sonal observations of India, or whose knowledge of its 
languages, may enable them to detect my mistakes, and, 



Vlll PREFACE. 

if they please, to laugh at my ignorance. The scholars 
of British India and the intelligent natives have good 
right to despise any one who sets up his own notions in 
opposition to their testimonies, and who makes these no- 
tions an excuse for severe reflections upon a state of so- 
ciety with which he is unacquainted. They may possi- 
bly be tolerant of one who by comparing their testimo- 
nies, so far as he has been able to gather them, has 
corrected many crude notions which he had previously 
entertained, and who desires nothing more than that 
any sentiments of disgust and contempt which Eng- 
lishmen in India may conceive for the notions and 
practices which they witness, should rather be coun- 
teracted than strengthened by their English education. 
Professor H. Wilson has undertaken an edition of Mr. 
Mill's History of British India, in the hope, as he 
intimates in his preface, of correcting, by the evidence 
of facts, the harsh judgments of the Hindoos, into 
which the historian was led by theory. To the civil 
and military servants of the Company such a work 
may be as useful as the design of it is benevolent. 
But the missionary, though it is to be hoped he will not 
neglect to profit either by Mr. Mill's labors, or by the 
experience and Oriental wisdom with which Professor 
Wilson has enriched them, is open to another kind of 
temptation, which the one will not much increase, nor 



the other enable him to resist. The actual sight of a 
country wholly given to idolatry, must be far more 
startling and appalling to him than any pictures he can 
have formed of it previously. Not to weaken these 
impressions, but to prevent them from overwhelming 
him, and so destroying that sympathy with the victims 
of idolatry, which is the most necessary qualification 
for his task, should be the great object of his home in- 
structors. For this end, I think, we should aim, not 
merely at cultivating Christian love and pity in his 
heart : these will scarcely be kept alive, if there be 
not also an intellectual discipline, (I call it intellectual, 
yet it is in the very highest sense a moral discipline,) 
to show him what the thoughts and feelings of which 
Hindooism is the expression have to do with himself, 
how they are interpreted by the experience of individ- 
uals and the history of the world. I look earnestly to 
St. Augustine's College, in the hope that it may fulfil 
both these tasks. Should it do so, it will be indeed 
worthy of its name ; it may be the instrument of re- 
storing faith to England, as well as of imparting it to 
her dependencies. For do we not need, as I have 
hinted in my last Lecture, to be taught that the Gos- 
pel is not a dead letter, by discovering what living 
wants there are in us, and all men, which it meets and 
satisfies ? 



It might have been desirable that I should have ap- 
pended to this, and the two following Lectures, some 
illustrative notes : I had intended to do so, but I feared 
that I should increase the size and price of the volume, 
without conferring a proportionate benefit upon the 
reader. I can enumerate in a few lines the books from 
which my proofs would have been drawn. From 
them (and they are within the reach of persons who 
are as ignorant of Oriental literature as I am) much 
more may be learnt in the course of a few hours' fair 
study, than from long appendices of extracts selected ' 
at the pleasure of an author. 

The Essay of Mr. Colebrooke on the Vedas, in the 
eighth volume of the Asiatic Researches, and Mr. 
Rosen's Latin translation of the Rig Veda, are at 
present * the chief helps which the Western student 
possesses for a knowledge of the earliest Hindoo faith. 
It is important to observe, that while Mr. Colebrooke's 
extracts are chiefly taken from the liturgical part of 
the Vedas, those upon which the late Rammohun Roy 

* I understand that a young German, now in London, whose 
knowledge of Sanscrit is profound, and his industry plus quam 
Germanica, has it in contemplation to publish and translate all 
the Vedas. English money it is to be hoped will not be wanting, 
when the other and more indispensable requisite is supplied by 
a foreigner. 



raised his argument for the corruption of the later 
faith, were doctrinal passages. His conclusion, as I 
have hinted in my Lecture, is therefore unsatisfactory, 
though it ought not to be called unfair or disingenuous. 
If he had quoted the prayers which Mr. Colebrooke 
has made us acquainted with, English readers would 
no doubt have discredited his boast of the primitive 
Monotheism of his country. But they would have 
done so hastily. Those prayers imply a Monotheism 
as certainly as the direct teaching ; and the one may 
justly be adduced as the interpretation of the other. 
The question is, what Monotheism ? The prayers and 
doctrine I think make the same answer : a Monotheism 
which made it impossible to distinguish the object wor- 
shipped from the mind of the worshipper, and therefore 
which implicitly contained, and out of which was in- 
evitably developed, the later Polytheism. We may be 
thankful to Rammohun Roy for helping us to detect the 
old faith at the root of one which seems so unlike it, 
but cannot allow him to confuse us, however innocently, 
by the use of a phrase which is susceptible of the most 
opposite significations. 

The translation of the Menu Code, by Sir W. Jones, 
brings that part of the subject within the reach of all. 
I hope the reader will verify the account I have given 
of it by examining it for himself, together with the 



excellent digest of it, in the first volume of Mr. Elphin- 
stone's history. 

The third Appendix to the history of this eminent 
statesman contains an admirable commentary upon 
the Greek accounts of India, contained in the fifteenth 
book of Strabo, and the Indica of Arrian. 

The Vishnu Purana, edited by Professor Wilson, ex- 
hibits another and much more recent stage of the my- 
thology, — that which I have spoken of as produced 
by the artificial incorporation of the old faith with the 
different kinds of worship which had arisen from pop- 
ular movements and reactions. To trace the progress 
of these movements with little help from external his- 
tory, is of course difficult ; no one solution of the prob- 
lem can be certain ; all as hints may be useful. The 
one I have supposed seems to be internally probable 
and consistent ; still there is an objection to it which I 
have no wish to conceal. Professor Wilson offers rea- 
sons for thinking that the Puranas which have the Siva 
element predominant in them, are considerably older 
than those which have the Vaishnava characteristics. 
It may hence be concluded that the Siva worship itself 
preceded that of Vishnu. If this were the case, I should 
be wrong in my fancy respecting the first transition from 
the merely abstracted Brahminical religion to the pop- 
ular ; at least, wrong in assuming what may have been 



PREFACE. Xlll 

true in aparticular case, as explaining the history gen- 
erally. Other authorities think that the two forms of 
worship may have had a contemporaneous develop- 
ment in different places ; a view not incompatible 
with the one I have taken, especially as it is assumed 
on all hands that the names considered as attributes or 
characters of the divinity, as forms through which 
he was beheld, existed almost in the first stage of 
the religion. 

The subject of the Philosophical sects among the 
Hindoos, is treated by Mr. Colebrooke in a series of 
papers in the first and second volumes of the Royal 
Asiatic Transactions. These papers (which should 
be compared with the paper on the Vedanta System, 
by Col. Vans Kennedy, Vol. III. p. 412) are full of 
interest. 

These writings of actual observers should be studied 
before the speculations of even the most intelligent 
thinkers. But I should be ungrateful if I did not say that 
the passages on India in the Mythologies of Baur and 
Windischmann, and still more in Hegel's Philosophy 
of History, with the little book of Frederick Schle- 
gel, called Die Tndien, have illuminated many dark 
and dull reports, and have enabled me to feel the 
connection between the thoughts of other periods and 
countries, and those which characterize our own times. 



XIV PREFACE. 

The temptation to speak of Buddhism merely or 
chiefly in this connection, is one which I was aware of 
when I entered upon the subject in my third Lecture, 
and which I strove to resist. I am sure that any ad- 
vantage we may derive from a comparison of the dif- 
ficulties which have beset Asiatics in different ages 
with those which are besetting Europeans now, must 
depend upon the earnestness with which we determine 
first to understand the former in themselves. If we 
are more eager to make applications, than to ascertain 
what we have to apply, we may write a polemical trea- 
tise which will convince all who agreed with us before, 
and will furnish writers in reviews, who have ex- 
hausted their old arguments or invectives against some 
opponent, with a set of new phrases ; but we shall not 
remove one perplexity from any earnest mind ; we 
shall only throw into it a new element of confusion. 
The ultimate tendencies of Buddhism to entire evapo- 
ration, to mere negation, are manifest enough. The 
like tendencies assuredly exist, perhaps are becoming 
stronger every day, in Christendom. But to take the 
result of a certain doctrine or habit of mind, without 
considering its stages, varieties, counteractions ; its 
lights as well as its shadows ; how it weaves for itself 
at one time a dogmatic or sacerdotal vesture ; how it 
sinks at another into a mere speculation ; above all, 



what an Eternal Verity keeps it alive in all its forms ; 
is not using it for the warning and instruction of men, 
but turning it into a mask for frightening children. If 
it is well for us to show what possibilities lurk in Buddh- 
ism because they lurk in us, still more ought we to 
consider its actual history, because it is the history of 
a process which may be passing in the minds of per- 
sons whom we are most ready to think of as having 
reached the last development of unbelief ; because it 
may be going on in us when we are giving ourselves 
credit for the greatest amount of faith. 

Entering upon the subject with these feelings, I de- 
sired to hear of Buddhism, not in digests, which repre- 
sented it as a system at rest, but from intelligent ob- 
servers who saw it in motion and described its different 
appearances. The papers on the subject in the Royal 
Asiatic Society are for this purpose invaluable, espe- 
cially those of Mr. Hodgson, to which I have referred 
in the text (Transactions, Vol. II. p. 222) ; that on 
Buddha and the Phrabat by Captain Low (Vol. III. p. 
57) ; that on the consecration of priests by Mr. Knox 
(Vol. III. p. 271). ; the disputations respecting Caste by 
a Buddhist (Vol. III. p. 160). To these may be 
added different accounts of the Lama in the Asiatic 
Researches (Vol. I. p. 197, and XVII. pp. 522-524), 
and the later narrative of Mr. Turner. For a general 



statement, I know nothing better than the article on 
Buddhism in the Penny Cyclopaedia.- Dr. Pritchard's 
works will supply valuable information upon this, as 
upon most other subjects. Of course it would be 
absurd to slight the French writers upon Buddhism, 
though on a subject which offers such facilities for 
systematizing, and in which systematizing is so likely 
to mislead, it may be lawful to view them with some 
suspicion. 

Of the Confucian doctrine, on the other hand, they 
are probably the best, as they are the most zealous 
and enthusiastic expounders. The Quatre Livres of 
Confucius, translated by Pauthier, is a moderately 
sized and readable book, and the preface to it is very 
useful and instructive. The Chinese reverence of 
Fathers is abundantly illustrated in the fourth volume 
of the Memoir es sur les Chinois, par les Missionaires 
de Pekin. All our recent writers, Davis, Medhurst, 
Gutzlaff, though valuable in reference to China gener- 
ally, are rather vague and unsatisfactory on the sub- 
ject of its religion. The Chinese exhibition at Knights- 
bridge was, in this respect, more valuable than any 
of them. 

The recent interpretation of the arrow-headed in- 
scriptions by Major Rawlinson will add, no doubt, 
greatly to our knowledge of the Persian or Zend doc- 



trines. They seem to confirm the opinion which was 
so long entertained upon other grounds, that Darius 
Hystaspes was an instrument in the restoration of the 
true Persian faith, after it had d been subverted by the 
Pseudo-Smerdis. It seems also clearer than it was 
before, that the reformation, which is connected with 
the name of Zoroaster, consisted mainly in the asser- 
tion of the absolute supremacy of Ormuzd. It dpes 
not follow that Ahriman worship was prohibited or 
wholly denounced : that it was continually reappear- 
ing in the popular mind, is evident. The later Ma- 
gian faith may have been an attempt to reconcile the 
reformed with the popular doctrine ; or rather, may 
it not be supposed that Zoroaster's was the regal 
creed, and that the priests never more than partially 
recognized it ? 

What has been said respecting the three cycles of 
Egyptian gods, is explained at large in the Mgypten 
of Chevalier Bunsen, Vol. I. pp. 423 - 433. He has 
a remark (p. 432) upon the mistaken effort to form 
Triads in different mythologies, by bringing together 
gods from different localities, or periods of history, 
which I have found very useful. Keeping it in memo- 
ry, I think I have learnt more to find in the Triad 
an interpretation of all mythology, than if I had la- 
2 



bored ever so diligently to find parallels for it in the 
external parts of the systems. 

If I had been writing a history instead of a lecture, 
it would have behooved me, when speaking of the re- 
lations of Christianity with Persia, to have noticed the 
Nestorian missions in that country. I believe the his- 
tory of these missions would throw an important light 
upon the whole subject ; but it would have led me 
into many details, which, especially in a recapitula- 
tion, I was anxious to avoid. To pass over any facts 
merely because they might tend to the honor of here- 
tics, would be grossly inconsistent with the profes- 
sions, and I hope with the spirit, of these Lectures.* 

* I ought perhaps to have noticed two large works, written 
by Englishmen, on the subject of my second Lecture ; the Hin- 
doo Antiquities of Mr. Thomas Maurice, and the work on the 
Literature, Manners, and Religion of the Hindoos, by Mr. 
Ward. They illustrate two habits of mind directly opposite to 
each other ; almost equally unfavorable, I think, to a true ap- 
prehension of the Brahminical faith, and of its relation to Chris- 
tianity. Mr. Maurice seems to regard the abominations of idol- 
atry as objects merely of literary interest and antiquarian curi- 
osity. Mr. Ward can see only the hateful and the devilish ; of 
what good it may be the counterfeit, what divine truth may be 
concealed in it, and may be needed to supplant it, he has not 
courage to inquire. Each, I think, is refuted on its own 
ground. Dilettante scholarship is found not to be sound 



PREFACE. XIX 

scholarship. That which has no hold on the present, proves 
not to be true of the past. Mere observers of evil do not de- 
scribe the evil accurately or vividly enough ; the points may be 
correct, but the impression is false ; for want of light, we do 
not feel the darkness. I believe most persons find it exceeding- 
ly difficult to read either of these books ; quite impossible to 
remember them. 

I ought to have said, when speaking of Eammohun Eoy, 
that his Tracts were written originally for his own countrymen, 
not for Englishmen. They were first printed in Calcutta : col- 
lected and republished in London, I believe under his direc- 
tion, in 1832. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 



THE RELIGIONS OP THE WOELD. 



LECTURE I. 

PAGE 

Why these Lectures were founded.— Design op 
the Present Course. — Mahometanism — Its Suc- 
cesses. — Keasons assigned for them. — Principle • 
of the paith 25 



LECTURE II. 

Character op the Hindoo Faith. — The Brahmin. 
Worship of the Pure Intelligence. — The popu- 
lar Reaction. — Vishnu and Siva. — Relations op 
the English Government to Hindooism . . 56 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE III. 



Buddhism.— Its Origin and Diffusion.— Its Vari- 
ous Forms. — The Lama. — Buddhism and its Ri- 
vals in China 86 



LECTURE IV. 

The Old Persian Faith and its Destruction. — 
The Egyptian.— The Greek.— The Roman.— The 
Gothic— General Conclusion . . . .115 



PART II. 



RELATIONS OF THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD WITH 
CHRISTIANITY. 



LECTURE I. 

Why Judaism has not occupied a separate Place 
in these Lectures.— Mahometanism related to 



CONTENTS. XX111 

Christianity on its Judaical Side.— Nature of 
the Relation indicated. — Wherein Mahometan- 
ism dippers prom Judaism. — Dangers to Chris- 
tianity FROM THE FORGETFULNESS OR PREDOMI- 
NANCE op its Mahometan Side. — How the Chris- 
tian Faith, and Church satisfy the Cravings 
of Mahometans 147 



LECTURE II. 

The Relation between Christianity and Hindoo- 
ism GENERALLY COMPARED.— MISTAKES CONCERNING 

it. — Investigation -of its Nature. — The Twice- 
born Man. — The Image of Brahm. — Incarna- 
tions. — Sacrifice. — Dangers to Christianity 
from its Hindoo Side. — How Christianity can 

AUD CANNOT SATISFY HINDOOS 177 



LECTURE III. 

How this Relation should be detected. — The 
Descent of the Spirit. — Relation op the Chris- 
tian Church to the Jewish.— Supposed Analo- 
gy to the Relations op Buddhism with Brah- 
minism. — The Resemblances and Difference be- 
tween Christianity and Buddhism. — The Buddh- 



LX1V CONTENTS. 

ist Side op Christianity threatening its Ex- 
istence. — How Christians mat speak to Buddh- 
ists elsewhere, especially in China . . . 202 



LECTURE IV. 

The early Preaching op the Gospel, — how it 
affected Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Goths. — 
Form of this Preaching. — Resistance from the 
Doctrine of an Evil Principle. — Mahometan 
Protest against it, and for the Sacredness of 
the Outward World. — Hindoo Protest on Be- 
half of a Divine Kingdom. — Buddhist Protest 

FOR AN ACTUAL INDWELLING SPIRIT. — MODERN In- 

fidel Protest for Humanity. — Christianity es- 
tablished by « all.— Conclusion .... 



PART I. 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



LECTURE I. 

Why these Lectures were founded. Design of the 
present Course. Mahometanism. Its Successes. Rea- 
sons ASSIGNED FOR THEM. PRINCIPLE OF THE FAITH. 

In the year 1691 Robert Boyle directed by a codicil 
to his will " that Eight Sermons should be preached 
each year in London for proving the Christian Religion 
against notorious Infidels, to wit, Atheists, Theists, 
Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans ; not descending lower 
to any controversies that are among Christians them- 
selves." He desired " that the preacher of these Ser- 
mons should be assisting to all companies, and encour- 
aging of them in any undertaking for propagating the 
Christian Religion to foreign parts " ; and " further, 
that he should be ready to satisfy such real scruples 
as any may have concerning these matters, and to an- 
swer such objections and difficulties as may be started, 
to which good answers have not yet been made." 

The second of these clauses seems to explain the 
3 



26 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.^ 

intention of the first. The objections to Christianity- 
urged by Jews, Pagans, and Mahometans were not, per- 
haps, likely to perplex an ordinary Englishman. But 
England, in the seventeenth century, was becoming 
more and more a colonizing country. The American 
settlements were increasing in importance every year. 
The East India Company had already begun its career 
of commerce, if not of conquest. In his own par- 
ticular department of natural science, Boyle observed 
the most steady progress ; no one was doing more to 
accelerate it than himself. He would naturally divine 
that an advancement, not less remarkable, must take 
place in another region, in which the interests of men 
were far more directly engaged. He must have felt 
how much the student in his closet was helping to give 
speed to the ships of the merchant, an'd to discover 
new openings to his ambition. As a benevolent man, 
he could not contemplate accessions to the greatness 
and resources of his country, without longing that she 
might also be conscious of her responsibility, that she 
might bring no people within the circle of her gov- 
ernment whom she did not bring within the circle of 
her Light. Accordingly, we find him offering frequent 
encouragement by his pen and purse to the hard-work- 
ing missionaries who were preaching the Gospel among 
the North American Indians. Cheering words, pecu- 
niary help, and faithful prayers, might be all which 
these teachers of savages could ask from their brethren 
at home. But Boyle knew that difficulties which they 
would rarely encounter must continually present them- 
selves to those who came in contact with the Brahmin 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 27 

in Hindostan, with the Mussulman both in Europe and 
Asia, with the Jew in every corner of the globe. A 
man who thought lightly or contemptuously of any of 
these, or of their arguments, — who had not earnestly 
considered what they would have to say, and what he 
had to tell them, — could not be expected to do them 
much good. Moreover, Boyle was too well acquainted 
with philosophical men, with the general society of Eng- 
land, and with his own heart, not to be aware that there 
was another kind of opposition more formidable than 
this, which the proposal to diffuse Christianity abroad 
must struggle with. Was the gift worth bestowing ? 
Were we really carrying truth into the distant parts of 
the earth when we were carrying our own faith into 
them ? Might not the whole notion be a dream of our 
vanity ? Might not particular soils be adapted to par- 
ticular religions ? Might not the effort to transplant 
one into another involve the necessity of mischievous 
forcing, and terminate in inevitable disappointment ? 
Might not a better day be at hand in which all relig- 
ions alike should be found to have done their work of 
partial good, of greater evil, and when something much 
more comprehensive and satisfactory should supersede 
them ? Were not thick shadows overhanging Chris- 
tendom itself, which must be scattered before it could 
be the source of light to the world ? 

Such questions as these Boyle must often have heard 
propounded by others ; but the deepest and most painful 
suggestion of them had been to himself. He tells us, 
in the sketch of a European tour written under the 
name of Philaretus, that " when he was still a young 



28 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

man, after he had visited other places, his curiosity at 
last led him to those wild mountains where the first 
and chiefest of the Carthusian abbeys is seated ; where 
the Devil, taking advantage of that deep raving melan- 
choly befitting so sad a place, his humor, and the 
strange stories and pictures he found there of Bruno, 
the father of that order, suggested such strange and 
hideous thoughts, and such distracting doubts of some 
of the fundamentals of Christianity, that though his looks 
did little betray his thoughts, nothing but the forbid- 
dingness of self-despatch hindered his acting it. But, 
after a tedious languishment of many months in this 
tedious perplexity, at last it pleased God one day he 
had received the Sacrament to restore unto him the 
withdrawn sense of his favor. But, though Philaretus 
ever looked upon these impious suggestions rather as 
temptations to be resisted than as doubts to be resolved, 
yet never did these fleeting clouds cease now and then 
to darken the clearest serenity of his quiet ; which 
made him often say that injections of this nature were 
such a disease to the faith as toothache is to the body, 
for though it be not mortal, it is very troublesome. 
However, as all things work together for good to them 
that love God, Philaretus derived from this anxiety the 
advantage of groundedness in his religion ; for the per- 
plexity his doubts created obliged him to remove them, 
— to be seriously inquisitive of the truth of the very 
fundamentals of Christianity, and to hear what both 
Jews and Turks, and the chief sects of Christians, 
could allege for their several opinions ; that so, though 
he believed more than he could comprehend, he might 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 29 

not believe more than he could prove, and not owe the 
steadfastness of his faith to so poor a cause as the 
ignorance of what might be objected against it. He 
said, speaking of those persons who want not means to 
inquire and abilities to judge, that it was not a greater 
happiness to inherit a good religion, than it was a fault 
to have it only by inheritance, and think it the best 
because it is generally embraced, rather than embrace 
it because we know it to be the best. That though we 
cannot always give a reason for what we believe, yet 
we should be ever able to give a reason why we believe 
it. That it is the greatest of follies to neglect any dili- 
gence that may prevent the being mistaken where it is 
the greatest of miseries to be deceived. That how dear 
soever things taken upon the score are sold, there is 
nothing worse taken up upon trust than religion, in 
which he deserves not to meet with the true one that 
cares not to examine whether or no it be so." (Works, 
Vol. I. p. 12.) 

It is evident, I think, that a comparison of religious 
systems undertaken by a man who had just passed 
through so tremendous a conflict, and who had no 
professional motive for entering upon it, must have 
been something very different from a dry legal inquiry 
respecting the balance of probabilities in favor of one 
or the other. I do not mean that Boyle will not have 
brought to this subject all the habits of patient investi- 
gation which he ordinarily applied to the study of phys- 
ical phenomena. The very anguish of his mind 
made it essential that he should seek for a real stand- 
ing ground ; and that he should not therefore strain 



30 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

facts for the sake of arriving at an agreeable conclu- 
sion. Indeed, it is difficult to say which conclusion 
would seem most agreeable to a man exercised as he 
was : there would be at times a bias of understanding, 
and even affection, as strong against Christianity 
as his education could create in favor of it. But, 
undoubtedly, his object in questioning these different 
schemes of belief will have been to ascertain what 
each of them could do for him ; what there was in it 
to meet the demands of his heart and reason. It was 
no occasion for clever special pleading ; the question 
was to him one of life and death : when he had once 
resolved it, the next duty was to act upon his convic- 
tion, and to strive that all men should be better for that, 
which he, because he was a man, had found to be 
needful for himself. Upon this principle he founded 
these Lectures. The truth of which he had become 
assured, was, he believed, a permanent one; the next 
generation would need it as much as his own. He did 
not suppose that the actual relation in which that truth 
stood to different systems of belief could alter. But it 
did not follow that the inquiry respecting the nature of 
that relation would be exhausted in his day. As new 
regions unfolded themselves to European adventure, 
new facts, modifying or changing previous notions 
respecting the faiths which prevailed in them, might 
come to light ; fresh and more trying experiences 
might make the past more intelligible ; the same doubts 
respecting the justice, wisdom, or possibility of bring- 
ing other men into our religious fellowship which pre- 
sented themselves to his contemporaries, might appear 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 31 

again and again in very different shapes, appealing 
to even opposite feelings and tempers. 

The event, I believe, has proved that he was right. 
Within fifty years a prodigious change has taken place 
in the feelings of men generally — of philosophical 
men particularly — respecting Religious Systems. In 
the latter part of the seventeenth century, still more 
during a great part of the eighteenth, they were re- 
garded by those who most gave the tone to popular 
thinking, and who had the highest reputation for wis- 
dom, as the inventions of lawgivers and priests. Men 
cleverer and more dishonest than the rest of the world 
found it impossible to build up systems of policy, or to 
establish their own power, unless they appealed to 
those fears of an invisible world which ignorance so 
willingly receives and so tenderly fosters. This being 
the admitted maxim respecting religions generally, it 
seemed the office of the Christian apologist to show 
that there was one exception ; to explain why the Gos- 
pel could not be referred to this origin ; how entirely 
unlike it was to those forms of belief which were 
rightly considered deceptions. That many dangerous 
positions were confuted by works written with this 
object ; that many of the distinguishing marks of 
Christianity were brought out in them ; that many 
learnt from them to seek and to find a standing-ground 
in the midst of pits and morasses, it is impossible to 
doubt. But the demonstrations of God's' providence 
were in this case, as in all others, infinitely broader, 
deeper, more effectual, than those of man's sagacity. 
The evidence furnished by the great political Revolu- 



32 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

tion at the close of the last century seems slowly to 
have undermined the whole theory respecting the invisi- 
ble world and men's connection with it, which pos- 
sessed the teachers of that century. Men are begin- 
ning to be convinced, that, if Religion had had only 
the devices and tricks of statesmen or priests to rest 
upon, it could not have stood at all,; for that these are 
very weak things indeed, which, when they are left to 
themselves, a popular tempest must carry utterly away. 
If they have lasted a single day, it must have been 
because they had something better, truer than them- 
selves, to sustain them. This better, truer thing, it 
seems to be allowed, must be that very faith in men's 
hearts upon which so many disparaging epithets were 
cast, and which it was supposed could produce no 
fruits that were not evil and hurtful. Faith, it is now 
admitted, has been the most potent instrument of good 
to the world ; has given to it nearly all which it can 
call precious. But then it is asked, Is there not ground 
for supposing that all the different religious systems, 
and not one only, may be legitimate products of that 
faith which is so essential a part of man's constitution ? 
Are not they manifestly adapted to peculiar times and 
localities and races ? Is it not probable that the the- 
ology of all alike is something merely accidental, an 
imperfect theory about our relations to the universe, 
which will in due time give place to some other ? 
Have we not reason to suppose that Christianity, in- 
stead of being, as we have been taught, a Revelation, 
has its root in the heart and intellect of man, as much 
as any other system ? Are there not the closest, the 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 33 

most obvious relations between it and them ? Is it not 
subject to the same law of decay from the progress of 
knowledge and society with all the rest ? Must we not 
expect that it too will lose all its mere theological char- 
acteristics, and that what at last survives of it will be 
something of a very general character, some great 
ideas of what is good and beautiful, some excellent 
maxims of life, which may very well assimilate, if 
they be not actually the same, with the essential prin- 
ciples which are contained in all other religions, and 
which will also, it is hoped, abide for ever ? 

Notions of this kind will be found, I think, in much 
of the erudite as well as of the popular literature of 
this day ; they will often be heard in social .circles ; 
they are undoubtedly floating in the minds of us all. 
While we entertain them, it is impossible that we can, 
with sound hearts and clear consciences,* seek to evan- 
gelize the world. Yet they are not to be spoken of as 
if they proceeded from a merely denying, unbelieving 
spirit : they are often entertained by minds of deepest 
earnestness ; they derive their plausibility from facts 
which cannot be questioned, and which a Christian 
should not wish to question. They may, I believe, if 
fairly dealt with, help to strengthen our own convic- 
tions, to make our duty plainer and to show us better 
how we shall perform it. All their danger lies in their 
vagueness : if we once bring them fairly to those tests 
by which the worth of hypotheses in another depart- 
ment is ascertained, it may not perhaps be hard to dis- 
cover what portions of truth, and what of falsehood, they 
contain. I think I shall be carrying out the intention 



34 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

of Boyle's will, if I attempt, in my present course, to 
make this experiment. I propose to examine the great 
Religious Systems which present themselves to us in 
the history of the world, not going into their details, 
far less searching for their absurdities, but inquiring 
what is their main characteristical principle. If we 
find, as the objectors say, good in each of them, we 
shall desire to know what this good is, and under what 
conditions it may be preserved and made effectual. 
These questions may, I think, be kept distinct from 
those which will occupy us in the latter half of the 
course. In what relation does Christianity stand to 
these different faiths ? If there be a faith which is 
meant for mankind, is this the one, or must we look 
for another ? 

I shall not take these systems in their historical order, 
but rather according to the extent of the influence they 
have exerted over mankind ; a reason which would at 
once determine me to begin in the present Lecture 
with Mahometanism. 

For the first ninety years after the publication of this 
religion in the world, the Christians of Europe could 
do little more than wonder at its amazing, and, as it 
seemed, fatal progress in Asia and Africa. Before the 
end of a century it had obtained a settlement in a cor- 
ner of their own continent and threatened every part 
of it. But the new Western Empire established itself, 
Christian champions appeared in Spain, the power of 
the Caliphs declined. Then Islamism appeared again 
in another conquering, proselytizing tribe. For two 
centuries the European nations wrestled to recover its 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



35 



conquests in the Holy Land. A period followed during 
which the disciples of both religions seemed almost 
equally threatened by Tartar hordes. These stooped 
to the Crescent ; in the fifteenth century a mighty 
Mahometan government was seen occupying the capital 
of the East, threatening the Latin world, profiting by 
the disputes of Christian sovereigns with one another, 
exhibiting its own order and zeal in melancholy con- 
trast to the quarrels, unbelief, and heartlessness of 
monarchs and prelates. It became a question with the 
thoughtful men of that time, whether the Ottoman em- 
pire did not possess a polity which was free from the 
tendencies to weakness and decay that had existed in 
all previous governments, and whether it might not last 
for ever. 

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when 
the fallacy of this notion was making itself evident, 
Christians began to speculate coldly and quietly upon 
the causes which had given such prevalency to this 
faith in past days, and which still kept it alive in their 
own. It may be well to consider a few of the explana- 
tions which different persons, according to their differ- 
ent observations or habits of mind, have offered of this 
fact, that we may not lose the benefit of any light 
which has been thrown from any quarter upon the 
nature or principle of the religion itself. 

I. It was an easy and obvious method of solving the 
difficulty, to say that the Mahometans had triumphed 
by the force of their arms ; personal valor and a com- 
pact military organization being comprehended under 
that term. That they were warriors from the first, 



36 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

that their courage was often amazing, and that the 
Ottomans for a long time possessed the secret of mili- 
tary subordination, as scarcely any nation has ever 
possessed it, is evidently true. And it is a truth of 
which Christian apologists would very naturally avail 
themselves. The opposition, not in some accidental 
points, but in their whole scheme and conception, be- 
tween the Sermon on the Mount and the doctrine which 
could require or sanction such methods for its diffusion, 
would of course be carefully noted. Plain men would 
be asked to declare which teaching bore clearest tokens 
of belonging to the earth, which of a Divine origin. Nor 
was this argument an unfair one, however it might be, 
and has been again and again, traversed by an appeal 
to the practice of Christians, and the weapons to which 
they have resorted for the defence and propagation of 
their faith. For it is quite clear that the Mahometan 
wars were no accidental outgrowth of the system, — 
that they were not resoretd to with a doubtful con- 
science, with any uneasy feeling that they might by 
possibility be inconsistent with the intentions of their 
founder. On the contrary, the very spirit and life of 
Mahometanism exhibited themselves in these wars. In 
them came forth all the most striking and characteris- 
tic virtues which the doctrine has a right to boast of. 

• The Mahometan ruler felt that he was fulfilling his 
vocation, when he was going forth against the infidel ; 
he could scarcely fulfil it in any other way. We know 
indeed that Bagdad and Cordova became celebrated for 
all graceful refinements, for letters, even for toleration. 
We know that science, physical and metaphysical, be- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 37 

came a distinctive mark of the Arabians. Where a 
book like the Koran, written in a beautiful language^ is 
regarded with unbounded reverence, by degrees it will 
be studied ; and out of that study will be produced a 
literature which may spread itself in various directions. 
Monarchs would feel the influence of such pursuits, and 
would consider it their chief honor to direct them. 
But though periods like those of Haroun-al-Raschid 
were sure to occur in the history of Mahometanism, 
though in one sense they may be considered natural 
developments of it, they assuredly do not belong to the 
religion as such ; they rather showed that the original 
spirit which possessed its disciples was becoming feeble ; 
they portended a further decline of it, and probably its 
revival in some more vigorous form. Whenever a 
Mahometan ruler quite allows his arms to rust, when- 
ever he does not feel that it is his main work in the 
world to diffuse his doctrine by those means which are 
most simple and direct, we may be sure, whatever 
temporary prosperity may be vouchsafed him, that his 
dynasty cannot last very long. 

But though on these grounds it may be fair to repre- 
sent Mahometanism as essentially warlike, it is surely 
a great mistake to suppose that by saying so we have 
accounted for its spread over so large a portion of the 
earth. No thoughtful man could accept such a solu- 
tion, because, when he hears of valor in men and disci- 
pline in armies, he must ask himself whence these pro- 
ceeded, how they came to attach themselves to this 
particular faith, and because that question must inevi- 
ably lead him to seek for the real ground of success 



38 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

elsewhere. It cannot satisfy any Christian, because 
the -very belief which he opposes to that of the Mahom- 
etan must teach him that arms are not the most 
mighty things ; that there are secret invisible influences 
which are stronger than they. 

II. The proneness of the human mind to embrace 
any imposture was resorted to as a second method of 
accounting for this phenomenon, one which might per- 
haps combine with the former and help out its weak- 
ness. Of this proneness, the records of the world's 
history seem to supply abundant proofs, — our own 
daily experience of others, and of ourselves, still more. 
All men, in one kind of language or another, have 
confessed that there is something in man which tempts 
him to entertain falsehood, and disown truth, to follow 
deceitful guides, to reject the honest and true, to make 
a lie and to love it. And yet I think all confess, in one 
kind of language or another, that whenever any man, 
or any body of men, has learnt to relish what is false, 
and dislike what is true for its own sake, that man, or 
that body of men, is in the last stage of corruption and 
degradation, — is approaching a point in which manli- 
ness, faith, and union become impossible, — in which 
the death of all individual power, of all social existence, 
is at hand. That the elements of such destruction are 
in every human being and in every human fellowship 
at every moment, and that they are often gathered up 
in religious systems, none will dispute. But that they 
can account for the existence of any thing which has 
endured for a long time, which has manifested great 
power ; that in them lies the source of a vigor and con- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 39 

centration which they are perpetually threatening to 
extinguish, I think no sane person who sets the ques- 
tion fairly before himself can believe. We may need 
the propensity of men to believe impostures, as a key 
to many portions of the history of the Mahometan faith, 
to many circumstances of its present condition ; we 
shall not find therein the secret of its diffusion and 
predominance. 

III. Led by these or other considerations to feel that 
what is right must be recognized in this faith, as well 
as what is wrong, Christians have sometimes explained 
its influence, by speaking of the plagiarisms in the 
Koran from the Old and New Testament Scriptures. 
That Mahometanism derived much from its connection 
with the older faiths of ^he world, would be confessed, 
I suppose, even by the philosophers who have least 
veneration for those faiths. They would easily ac- 
knowledge, nay, have often acknowledged, how much 
historical dignity and sacredness an Arabian teacher 
must have acquired by connecting himself with patri- 
archs who had lived two thousand years before ; who 
were attached, by closest links of association, to the 
very soil his countrymen trod ; whose doctrine he 
could speak of as the truth given to their fathers, now 
revived in its purity by himself. Nor would it be de- 
nied by these philosophers, that one living not only 
among Sabean worshippers, but amongst Christians and 
Jews, might advance his cause by professing his sym- 
pathy with much of the teachings in their holy books ; 
by saying, that he came to restore their systems to 
purity, while he delivered his countrymen from idola- 



40 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

try. But though, perhaps, thus much might be con- 
ceded by all, far more by a firm believer in the Bible, 
it may be fairly doubted whether the word "plagia- 
rism " is one suited to the case ; or whether, so far as 
Mahomet was a plagiarist, he could have exerted any 
influence. If he had merely transferred passages from 
our Scriptures to his, merely adopted formal doctrines 
which they set forth in living power, to mix them with 
his own notions, one cannot believe that he ever would 
have moved the heart of a single nation or of a single 
man. A teacher may, indeed, exercise a much greater 
power by reviving what is old, than by inventing what 
is new ; but to revive a principle he must have been 
penetrated by it, it must have taken possession of him, 
it must have inspired his who^e being; otherwise he 
could never impart it to others. Something of this 
sort must have been the case with Mahomet ; and 
therefore his plagiarisms, great as they may have been, 
do not account for his success. 

IV. The same answer may serve for those persons 
of a very different temper who are disposed to dwell 
with complacency upon passages in the Koran which 
contain just and benevolent sentiments, and who be- 
lieve that these were not merely transferred from 
Jewish or Christian sources, but actually exhibited the 
heart of the writer. We may admit the existence of 
such sentiments ; we need not, in the least, wish to 
represent them as insincere or hypocritical ; we may 
believe that they have exercised a real influence over 
the minds of Mussulmans, who constantly repeat them, 
and look upon them as proceeding from a prophet of 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 41 

God. But we cannot believe that mere phrases and 
sentiments, be they ever so good, nay, even if they did 
not occur in the midst of any that are fond or trivial 
and contradictory to themselves, could have wrought a 
deep conviction into the minds of men previously in- 
disposed to them. A precept may be of vast weight 
when we have bowed to the preceptor ; otherwise it is 
weak : it may be respected and praised, but it will not 
be followed ; nothing will be abandoned for the sake 
of it. 

V. There would seem then to be far more plausibility 
in the opinion of those who attribute great weight to the 
character of Mahomet itself, believing that however it 
may have been mixed of good and evil qualities, it was 
of a kind to act mightily upon his own countrymen, 
and through them upon mankind. He has been 
spoken of as one of the great governing and leaven- 
ing minds of the world, one able to stamp his own 
image upon nations and generations. Men did hom- 
age to him, it has been said, as they always will do 
homage to one whom they feel is their master, who is 
stronger than they, because his convictions are stronger, 
because he has grappled more with realities, because 
he has faith in unseen substances, of which they see 
little more than the shadows. Such assertions may be 
at variance with many conceptions we have formed of 
this man, but there is much in his biography to bear 
them out ; there is nothing in them, I believe, to startle 
any Christian who knows the grounds of his own be- 
lief. At what point the strong conviction of a truth 
which must be divine, which must be given us from 
4 



42 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

above, becomes mixed with self- exaltation, with the 
desire of showing how wise we are, and of exercising 
a dominion over others for our own sakes, it is hard to 
determine in any case. The more we know of our- 
selves, the more we shall understand how it is possible' 
to vibrate between the certainty we have of principles, 
which for the sake of our moral being we cannot part 
with, and a positiveness about notions which we have 
grounded upon them. When the conscience is clear, 
when the man is lowly, when he has been subdued by 
discipline, the opposition seems clear to him as between 
day and night ; the delusion of his own heart is mani- 
fested to him by the light which God has kindled there. 
But amidst the noise of human applause the distinction 
which was so definite vanishes, the precious and the 
vile become hopelessly mingled. Such personal ex- 
periences, which all have had in a greater or less de- 
gree, — which earnest and thoughtful young men 
especially require to be schooled in, because it depends 
upon the way they use them whether strong and clear 
and bright impressions in their minds shall destroy 
their docility, shall make them merely utterers of some 
new notion, or shall ripen into blessed discoveries of 
that which is true, — these experiences, I say, may 
help us to read the biographies of men who have had 
a great influence upon the world, with a kindlier and 
truer feeling. Their impressions were, doubtless, 
more overpowering than ours, their conflicts greater, 
their temptations severer. It is hard to say, that, be- 
cause they called themselves inspired, they meant to 
deceive ; that language might be the language of hu- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 43 

mility, not of arrogance, — the confession that every 
good gift, above all every illumination respecting any 
invisible reality, cometh from the Father of Lights. 
Not in this conviction, but in that pride which forgets 
Him, — in the desire to be something in themselves, — 
do we trace the beginning of all imposture ; in the 
blending of the two together, the melancholy mixture 
which religious systems present to one who studies 
them in themselves or in their effects. I am far then 
from wishing to deny that Mahomet's character may 
have met with unfair treatment at the hands of 
Christians. And it is, without doubt, one of the most 
noticeable circumstances in the history of his religion, 
that his own person should have been so much bound 
up with it ; that every caliph or sultan who has reigned 
over any tribe of his followers should have reigned in 
his name ; that the recollection of a man should have 
so much more power than even the book which Mus- 
sulmans regard with such profound reverence ; that 
the honor of a human chieftain should so markedly 
distinguish a religion which looks upon man as separat- 
ed by an immeasurable distance from the object of his 
worship. But this last remark shows that the person 
and character of Mahomet, important as they may 
have been in their practical influence, cannot satisfac- 
torily explain the charm by which his religion worked 
its way. In fact, it is one of the anomalies which re- 
quires to be accounted for, that a human leader should 
win this reverence. He himself declared and felt that 
he was nothing but a witness for God ; his followers 
received and honored him as holding that office. All 



44 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the worth he had in him was derived from that of which 
he testified. When he began consciously to take up 
any other position, it was one of weakness. We may 
consider Mahomet a hero if we please ; we may re- 
gard the reverence for him as a proof of men's tenden- 
cy in all circumstances to worship heroes ; but we can- 
not, without denying the plainest facts of the case, say 
that the success of his doctrine was a consequence of 
this disposition. His teaching was emphatically the 
denial of that worship ; every Mahometan sword was 
drawn to prove that it was false, and to put it down. 

VI. It rr^ht seem to follow inevitably, from what 
has just been said, that the Monotheism of Mahomet, 
and his hatred of idolatry, constituted the strength and 
vitality of his system. This opinion has often been 
maintained, and a reader of the history is continually 
tempted to adopt it. As we follow any of the earlier 
conquerors through Persia, through Egypt, through the 
Greek empire, we feel that the enthusiasm of the chief 
and of the soldier is connected with what they believe to 
be the destruction of false worship, the carrying out of 
the first and second Commandments. All the enemies 
of the Prophet are regarded alike as infidels, because all 
are thought to have raised something created into the 
place and glory of the Creator. The belief that noth- 
ing in earth, .nothing in the heavens, not even light, 
is a symbol of God ; that not even man himself can be 
looked upon in any other character than as a minister 
of the Supreme Being, evidently inspires every enter- 
prise. In the strength of it they destroy temples, idols, 
priests, plunder cities, make slaves of their inhabitants, 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 45 

turn their children into soldiers of the Crescent. All 
this is true, and yet I think no considerate person will 
suppose that mere opposition to the grossest forms of 
false worship could give nerve to any arm, far less 
permanence to any society. If Monotheism means the 
not believing in many gods, it could, as little as the 
other causes we have enumerated, be the root of the 
Mahometan faith and the Mahometan power. 

VII. But these sweeping conquests of Mahomet are 
susceptible of yet another interpretation, which has 
sometimes been applied to the whole history of their 
dominion : they may be regarded as the righteous 
judgments of God. upon guilty nations, whether these 
were the idolaters of India, the fire-worshippers of 
Persia, the corrupted Greek, or the Visigoth. It is 
difficult, I should think, for any person really taking 
the Bible as his guide, nay, for any person recognizing 
a Divine Providence at all, not to look upon eveiy great 
earthquake which has shaken kingdoms as a Divine 
visitation ; not to see a Divine hand regulating outward 
circumstances, and the wills of men. Nor can we go so 
far without going further, and asking what the state of 
those nations was on which the scourge descended ? 
If we pursue the inquiry fairly in this case, we shall 
be led, it seems to me, to the discovery of the real 
ground of the Mahometan might, and perhaps to regard 
the continuance of that might through so many ages 
not wholly as a calamity. In the Christian nations 
which were permitted to fall under the armies of Islam, 
almost as much as in those which were avowedly Pa- 
gan, the sense of a Divine Almighty Will, to which all 



46 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

human wills were to be bowed, had evaporated amidst 
the worship of images, amidst moral corruptions, phil- 
osophical theories, religious controversies. Notions 
about God more or less occupied them ; but God Him- 
self was not in all their thoughts. The awe of an Ab- 
solute Eternal Being, to be obeyed as well as to be 
confessed, was passing away in some, — had scarcely 
been awakened in others. The soldiers of Mahomet 
said, by their words and acts, " God verily is, and man 
is his minister, to accomplish his will upon earth." 
This we shall find was the inspiring thought in the war- 
riors of the Crescent, — this gave them valor, subordi- 
nation, discipline. This, where it encountered no like 
or equal feeling in the minds of those among whom 
they came, made them invincible. We must not be 
content with talking of their armies ; here was the life 
of their armies. We must not speak of men's readi- 
ness to receive an imposture ; in yielding to this asser- 
tion they were bowing to a truth. This was no verbal 
copy from ancient records ; it may have been the old- 
est of all verities, but it was fresh and new for every 
one who acted upon it. It was no mere phrase out of 
a book, — no homage to a mortal hero, — no mere de- 
nial of other men's faith. Let us go yet farther and 
say, It was a mercy of God that such a witness, how- 
ever bare of other supporting principles, however sur- 
rounded by confusions, should have been borne to His 
Name, when His creatures were ready, practically, to 
forget it. The first Mahometan conquest, the continued 
Mahometan dominion, proves the assertion " God is " 
to be no dry proposition, but one which is capable of ex- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 47 

ercising a mastery over the rudest tribes, of giving them 
an order, of making them victorious over all the civili- 
zation and all the religion which has not this principle 
for its basis. 

I think that most persons studying the history of Ma- 
hometanism without prejudice, will feel that this is the 
principle which confronts them at every turn, and to 
which every thing else is subordinate. And if so, the 
consideration is surely a very important one for our 
purpose. We are told that the mere theological part 
of religious systems is only a loose, flimsy drapery for 
certain maxims of morality, or certain ideas about the 
nature and spiritual destinies of man. How does the 
study of Mahometanism bear out this opinion ? Is it a 
collection of moral maxims which has been its strength ? 
Is it some theory or conception about the nature of 
man ? Precisely the opposite assertion is true. All 
mere maxims, all mere ideas about the nature of man, 
have proved weak and helpless before this proclama- 
tion of a living and Eternal God. The theological 
transcendent principle is just the one which has stood 
its ground, which has reappeared age after age, which 
the most ignorant warriors felt was true and mighty 
for them, for which no cultivation has provided any 
substitute. We are told, again, that the character of 
particular localities and races determines what shall be 
the character of a theology ; that that only is universal 
which concerns the laws of outward nature or the life 
of man. How does the history of Mahometanism bear 
out this opinion ? Let it be granted that the soil of 
Arabia was one on which it was fitting that such a doc- 



48 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

trine as that of Mahomet should be first preached : let 
it be allowed that the Semitic race has been especially 
distinguished from every other by an interest in what 
is purely Divine, by a comparative indifference to what 
is human. But here is an assertion which tribes the 
most remote from this are compelled to recognize ; 
which establishes itself in India, in Syria, in Egypt, in 
Greece. And it is remarkable that, while numerous 
sects and parties have been called into existence by 
questions respecting the proper successors of Mahomet, 
or the interpretation of the Koran, the Divine principle 
among them has been the uniting one. It is said, again, 
that the great doctrines which have been embodied in 
religious systems are the creations of the religious 
principle in man ; that his faith moulds the object which 
it worships : in other words, that what is called theo- 
logical truth is but some outward expression of our 
feelings or habits of mind. Look again at the history 
of Mahometanism ; consider the facts steadily : there 
are none to which the supporters of this theory should 
more gladly appeal. They can find no instance of a 
race of which faith in an unseen object has been more 
characteristic. " Faithful " is the very name by which 
the Islamite warriors proclaim themselves to the world. 
But what was the nature of this faith ? It meant noth- 
ing, it was nothing, except so far as it asserted a 
Being not dependent on itself; the ground of man's 
being ; one of whom he was the minister, not the Cre- 
ator. The Mahometan believed that the God whom he 
worshipped must have revealed Himself, — that man 
could not have discovered Him. He went forth to 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 49 

beat into powder all gods which he supposed man had 
invented. Take away these characteristics from his 
faith and it vanishes, with all the doings which were 
the fruits of it. 

One question still remains to be considered before I 
close this Lecture. May not the principle which Ma- 
hometanism embodies be left to the protection of the 
system which it seems to have created for itself ? — 
We must look into Mahometan history for the an- 
swer. 

When I spoke to you of the great power by which 
the Mahometan soldier was carried along in his enter- 
prises, of the principle which gave him strength and 
endurance, you may have wondered that I did not dwell 
more upon the rewards which were promised to him 
after death, upon the Paradise of sensual felicity for 
which the brave man was encouraged to hope. I did 
not allude to this motive, because I do not believe that 
it was the one by which the Mahometan hosts were 
really inspired. The mighty conviction that they were 
then, at that very moment, called by God to a work, 
that they were his witnesses and were the ministers 
of His vengeance, was, I believe, immeasurably more 
effective than any dreams, were they ever so gross and 
palpable, of what might be given to them hereafter. 
When they had already cast themselves away to live 
or die, they had a sense of immortality which no such 
visions could impart, which alone made them credible. 

But when the Mahometan was at peace, the belief 
of a mighty Sovereign to whom he was doing homage, 
no longer sufficed him ; he began to ask himself what 



50 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

he was living for ? To the multitude these sensual 
promises were a tolerable answer. These were the 
things to be desired ; for these, by whatsoever means 
the Koran or its interpreters prescribed, if they were 
in earnest, they were to labor. Some, with higher ap- 
prehensions, would feel that such rewards were not 
satisfying ; they would explain away the language of 
Mahomet, and pursue the practices, to which the others 
submitted in hope of earthly gratifications, that they 
might attain the knowledge or vision of God. The 
former would fall into gross moral corruptions, the lat- 
ter would indulge in philosophical speculations, — 
would found sects, — would substitute theories and 
notions for that Being in whose name their fathers 
had fought. This has actually been the case, and 
hence it has been proved that Mahometanism can only 
thrive while it is aiming at conquest. Why ? Because 
it is the proclamation of a mere Sovereign, who em- 
ploys men to declare the fact that he is a Sovereign, 
and to enforce it upon the world. It is not the procla- 
mation of a great moral Being who designs to raise his 
creatures out of their sensual and natural degradation ; 
who reveals to them not merely that He is, but what He 
is — why He has created them — what they have to do 
with Him. Unless this mighty chasm in the Mahometan 
doctrine can be filled up, it must wither^day by day, 
— wither for all purposes of utility to mankind ; it can 
leave nothing behind but a wretched carcass, filling the 
air with the infection of its rottenness. 

For, secondly, see how that which gave all the dig- 
nity and glory to this system becomes, from its want 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 51 

of some other element, the very cause of its degrada- 
tion. The absolute government of the unseen Being 
had presented itself to the Mussulman, in every age, 
in the absolute, visible government of his caliph or 
sultan. While the divine feeling was strong and 
alive, the subjection to the human ruler was an affec- 
tionate, dutiful, entire submission. The ruler was, in 
very deed, the centre of his warriors. He felt towards 
them as a protector, sharing their toils, bound to the 
same master, enduring hardships in the same cause. 
But the battle over, he becomes the absolute monarch 
in the midst of his seraglio, — they are merely his 
slaves. There is no such connection between him and 
the being whom he worships as permanently to check 
this tendency, — to make the monarch feel that he is 
set over them to do them good, or the subjects that 
they have an appeal against him to a higher Ruler. 

The very nature of the Ottoman government — and 
that government is the perfect development of the 
Mahometan idea — excludes the possibility of orders 
and gradations in society. Its strength lies in all being 
simply subjects of the one ruler, holding their offices 
not in virtue of any hereditary ranks or privileges, but 
only at his pleasure. When, therefore, the one princi- 
ple which quickened the whole society waxes feeble, 
of necessity it becomes the most intolerable of des- 
potisms. Elsewhere there is a balance and conflict of 
powers, which even in the dreariest periods produces 
struggles or paroxysms of life ; here, if the monarch 
do not inspire his people with strength, all is dead. 
And the same cause which destroys what may be 



52 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

called the family bonds of civil society, destroys 
equally the family itself. Polygamy is no accident of 
Mahometanism : a careful consideration of the system 
will show that it must fall to pieces the moment any 
reformer shall attempt to remove this characteristic 
of it. 

But again, the first principle of Mahometanism, 
wanting the support of some other which it does not 
acknowledge, must change, and is continually chan- 
ging, into one which is the counterfeit and direct op- 
posite of itself. The belief of a living, acting will 
passes into the acknowledgment of a dread necessity, a 
Fate, against which there is no struggling, which drives 
the soul not to energy for some great object, but to in- 
difference, languor, and the submission that means de- 
spair. Oftentimes indeed the patience of a Turk must 
even yet awaken our homage and our shame. Joyfully 
would we confess that God has not suffered the true 
principle to be wholly extinguished by its bastard prod- 
uct. But we would draw from that confession not a 
pretext for leaving this, or any feeble and beautiful 
plant of a better soil, to the hot-bed which has always 
impeded its growth, and now threatens to stifle it al- 
together ; but a certain hope that it is intended to re- 
ceive culture from without, and that, by help of that 
culture, it may yet blossom and bear fruit abundantly. 

These remarks may prepare us to take notice of one 
great fact in the history of Mahometanism, which is 
the connecting link between it and the other systems 
of which I propose to speak hereafter. 

I have talked of the victories of the Crescent in dif- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 53 

ferent quarters of the globe, and it is not easy to exag- 
gerate the greatness of those victories. Yet we all 
know they were not complete ; they did not extermi- 
nate that which they were meant to exterminate. I do 
not speak now of the resistance which this great power 
encountered from the hammer of the Mayor of Paris, 
or from the heroes in the Asturian mountains. I do 
not speak of any thing which is directly connected with 
Christianity. I mean that the most remarkable of the 
old polytheistic faiths, though crushed, were not cast 
out ; that some of the countries which yielded to Ma- 
hometans are not Mahometan. It behoves us to in- 
quire into the meaning of this fact, — to ask ourselves 
what there was in their' doctrines, compounded of all 
strange elements, sanctioning so many fearful crimes, 
for which the simple and purer Mahometan faith 
could provide no satisfaction. We may find that con- 
victions which the Mahometan trampled down, do as 
much require recognition as those which he enforced ; 
that man has demands for himself which will not be 
satisfied by being told that he is the servant of an abso- 
lute will, — demands which must, somehow or other, 
find their explanation, must in some way or other be 
reconciled with that great truth. 

I will not anticipate the nature or the results of that 
inquiry ; but I hope we may gather something from the 
one in which we have been engaged. You have found 
a set of men brought up in circumstances altogether 
different from yours, holding your faith in abhorrence, 
who say in language the most solemn and decisive, 
" Whatever else we part with, this is needful to us and 



54 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to all human beings, — the belief that God is, — the 
recognition of Him as a living personal Being." You 
have seen this faith growing weak for a time, and 
every thing else growing weak with it ; you have seen 
it reappearing, finding a new set of champions to 
assert it, compelling nations to bow before it. Be sure 
that here is something which the heart and reason 
within you have need of, — which they must grasp. 
Be quite sure, that if you give them in place of it any 
fine notions or theories ; if you feed them with phrases 
about the beautiful or the godlike, when they want the 
source of beauty, the living God ; if you entertain 
them with any images or symbols of art or nature 
when they want that which is symbolized ; if you talk 
about physical laws when you want the lawgiver, of 
mechanical properties when you want him who set 
them in motion, of secret powers when you want him 
who acts by them and upon you, — you are cheating 
yourselves, cheating mankind. Remember further, 
that the acknowledgment of this Being may imply 
much more than the Mahometan perceived, but that it 
does imply that which he perceived. If such an One 
is, His will must be the law of the universe. Every 
creature in the universe must b.e in a right or wrong 
position, must be doing his work well or failing in it, 
as he yields himself to this will, or as he resists it. 
And let us not fancy that the early Mahometan was 
entirely mistaken as to the way in which this will 
ought to be obeyed. He may not have understood 
what enemies he had to fight with, what weapons he 
had to wield, but he did discover that the life of man is 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 55 

to be a continual battle, that we are only men when we 
are engaging in a battle. He was right that there is 
something in the world which we are not to tolerate, 
which we are sent into it to exterminate. First of all, 
let us seek that we may be freed from it ourselves ; 
but let us be taught by the Mussulman that we shall 
not compass this end unless we believe, and act upon 
the belief, that every man and every nation exists for 
the purpose of chasing falsehood and evil out of God's 
universe. 



LECTURE II. 



Character of the Hindoo Faith. The Brahmin. 
Worship of the Pure Intelligence. The popular 
Reaction. Vishnu and Siva. Relations of the 
English Government to Hindooism. 



The remarks which I made at the close of my last 
Lecture will prepare you to expect that I should speak 
in the present of Hindooism. That faith has been 
brought into conflict with Mahometanism, has suc- 
cumbed td it, and yet has maintained its ground, leav- 
ing the victorious religion the religion of a small mi- 
nority. Though it may pretend to an antiquity which it 
does not possess, it has certainly lasted three thousand 
years. The language in which its holy books are 
composed is the mother tongue — if I may use that 
phrase in its literal, rather than its ordinary sense — 
of the Greek, the Latin, and the dialects of our Gothic 
ancestors ; consequently, of nearly all which are spoken 
in Western Europe at this day. From this fact it 
might, I think, be inferred, if other evidence were 
wanting, that the mythologies of these nations could be 
traced to an Indian source. But there is abundant 
evidence, so much as to have misled those scholars 
who were first struck with it into a forgetfulness of the 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 57 

important historical principle, that we cannot determine 
the character of nations, or of their belief, merely by 
finding the point from which they started ; that each 
must be studied in itself, and in its own utterances, and 
that we gain only a secondary aid in our investigations 
when we have the means of affiliating it to some other. 
That this mistake was committed by some of the great 
Orientalists of the last century, I think is now generally 
acknowledged ; they seemed to suppose that they 
could learn more of the Greeks from Sanscrit books 
than from their own. But an extravagance which is 
natural to all discoverers does not make the discovery 
itself less valuable ; 141 fact, we are only beginning to 
appreciate its importance. The more practically we 
learn to sympathize with our fellow-men in all 
countries and in all ages, to cultivate such sympathy 
for our own sake and for theirs, and for the glory of 
God, the more will all such hints respecting the rela- 
tionship between different nations be reflected on and 
prized. And this remark suggests another and much 
weightier reason, why a Boyle Lecturer should address 
himself to the subject of Hindooism, and why we all 
should take an interest in it. It is the faith, to say the 
least, of between eighty and ninety millions of people, 
subjects of the British Empire. By conquests scarcely 
paralleled for rapidity in the annals of the world, we 
have obtained supremacy over them, and by civil 
policy we have tried to preserve it. As to the right 
character of this policy there has been the greatest 
variety of opinion ; but I think intelligent men are now 
well agreed, that, whatever it be, it must be grounded 



58 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

upon a knowledge of the character, institutions, faith, 
of the people who are to be influenced by it. Civilians, 
military officers, and missionaries in India, have exerted 
themselves to acquire this knowledge, and to make it 
available for us. Their theories, as well as their facts, 
when they seem most contradictory, are worthy of 
study and of comparison ; they may all help us in 
finding the principle of Indian life and belief, and that 
principle, when we apprehend it, may make the dif- 
ferences in their observations and opinions more in- 
telligible. 

There are, unquestionably, considerable difficulties 
in the investigation. This ancient people is strictly 
speaking without a history. " No date of a public 
event," — I use the words of Mr. Elphinstone, — 
" can be fixed before the invasion of Alexander ; no 
connected relation of the national transactions can be 
attempted until after the Mahometan conquest." Yet 
it would seem that we were in the greatest need of 
such records to connect the phenomena which offer 
themselves to the eye of the traveller in this day with 
the early books which are still regarded with the pro- 
foundest veneration. A Hindoo will sometimes tell us 
in wild language that he acknowledges three hundred 
millions of gods ; he means, of course, that the num- 
ber is indefinite, that any object or power in nature, 
any heroic man, may be a god. And those who trace 
Oriental extravagance in such a description, will, 
nevertheless, remember to have heard of various 
beings who are acknowledged objects of Hindoo adora- 
tion, — of Brahma the Creator, of Vishnu the Preserv- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 59 

er, of Siva the destroyer, of Indra, the Lord of the 
Elements, of the fearful goddess Devi, of the beauti- 
ful hero Krishna, and a multitude more. Yet learned 
and trustworthy critics, Asiatic as well as European, 
confidently affirm that the ground of the Brahminical 
faith is Monotheistic ; that One Being is assumed in the 
earliest of the sacred books to be the origin of all 
things ; that this was no lazy, inoperative tenet, but 
penetrated the whole system of worship, and the life 
of the worshipper. Putting such facts and such state- 
ments together, you might be ready to conclude that 
there was no real identity between the faith of one of 
these periods and of the other ; that either by conquest, 
or some strange process of degeneracy, the character 
and feelings of the people had become so changed as 
to make the notion of one Hindoo or Brahminical re- 
ligion a mere delusion. But many considerations will 
show us that this opinion, however plausible, is untena- 
ble. I have said, that the early Vedas, composed, per- 
haps, fifteen hundred years before the time of Christ, 
be their tenets what they may, are still regarded with 
unbounded veneration by the religious men among the 
Hindoos. The Menu code or institute, which is prob- 
ably about six hundred or seven hundred years younger 
than these, and which indicates some, though not radi- 
cal, alterations of practice and opinion during the inter- 
val, must still be the great study of every English 
jurist who wishes to understand the grounds of Hindoo 
law and life at the present day. Five or six centuries 
after the composition of this code the troops of Alex- 
ander crossed the Indus. The picture which the 



60 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Greeks give us of society as they observed it, accords 
with that which we gain from the earlier native source ; 
but, what is still more to the point, it also accords in 
essentials with what our own countrymen tell us of 
India now. With the advantages we possess from the 
actual occupation of the country, from being able to 
examine parts of it which the Greeks never visited, and 
from modern habits of critical investigation, we must 
see many things much more clearly than they did; 
and therefore, even when their reports are different 
from the present state of things, it is not necessary to 
assume that there must have been really a great 
change. It is hardly needful, however, to take this 
remark into consideration, for we are assured, by those 
who have the best opportunities of judging, that one of 
the most remarkable features of Hindoo life, the con- 
stitution and government of the villages, is exhibited 
with surprising faithfulness in narratives, which were 
derived from observations made more than two thou- 
sand years ago. Such permanence in social habits 
would surely lead us to expect something correspond- 
ing to it in the inward convictions of a people ; and we 
are not left to conjecture. The soldiers of Alexander 
found a set of men whose great business was contem- 
plation, who submitted to numerous privations and aus- 
terities that they might pursue it more effectually. 
The Brahmins they found were the leading class in the 
country ; military, agricultural, commercial occupa- 
tions were all subordinate to theirs, — all society had, 
in fact, organized itself in conformity with their ideas. 
The Greek fancied they had less to do with civil affairs, 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 61 

than we know, from their own code, that they must 
have had. But the general conception which he formed 
of the Brahmins was singularly accurate. He called 
them Sophists, a name which, in his own country, often 
denoted mere sceptics ; here it had no such significa- 
tion ; it implied that the Brahmins were not merely 
priests, such as were to be seen elsewhere ; that their 
first business was study ', and that the purely sacerdotal 
office was secondary to this. As the accounts which 
the Greek writers give of the objects of Hindoo wor- 
ship are meagre, and evidently distorted by the desire 
of finding resemblances to their own mythology, we 
might suppose that, for our purpose, we could not 
learn much from them. But I believe we shall find 
that their report of the Brahmins is, in fact, the key to 
the whole system ; one which, if we use it rightly, will 
enable us to discover its leading characteristics, and to 
understand, however little we may be able to trace, the 
varieties of form which it has assumed. 

The name of Brahmin at once suggests that of 
Brahm. The resemblance is no accidental one ; nor 
does it merely signify that the Brahmin is the minister 
or priest of Brahm. The connection is of a far more 
intimate and wonderful kind. The learned man, the 
contemplative sage, aspires to be one with him whom 
he adores, — to lose his own being in his. And what is 
this being ? He is the Absolute Intelligence ; the Es- 
sential Light. Rest, Contemplation : this is his glory, 
his perfection. You will feel at once the direct oppo- 
sition between this idea and that of the Mahometan. I 
bring it before you just at this point, that you may see 



62 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

how much we may impose upon ourselves by the word 
Monotheism, which is often used as if it were common 
to these two faiths, at least in their origin ; that you 
may see at the same time in what sense it has been 
honestly and rightly applied to Hindooism. Mahome- 
tanism began with a Prophet, but we saw the Prophet 
soon merged in the Khalif or Sovereign. This Sover- . 
eign was the organ of a mighty Will, which had called 
all things into existence, and of whom all men are 
servants. He fulfils his service in perpetual conflict ; 
only in such conflict does his faith make its meaning 
intelligible. There are no natural gradations of society, 
no hereditary ranks ; all are merely officers holding 
their position under one ruler. The priest is an insig- 
nificant person. Strictly speaking, there is no priest- 
hood. The dervish or learned man may be an impor- 
tant adviser of the Sovereign : in times of quiet he may 
promote learning, or become the head of a sect ; but 
when he is most regarded it is only as an interpreter of 
the Divine Will. The first principle of Mahometanism 
would be violated if he aspired to be himself divine. 
Here, on the contrary, the priest, the student, the be- 
holder, is judge, lawgiver, every thing. The God is an 
Intelligence, not a Will, — himself a higher priest, — 
a more glorious student, — a more perfect contemplator. 
You can scarcely conceive a mandate issuing from 
such a being : all things must flow from him as light 
from the sun, or thoughts from a musing man. Such 
an idea is ever implied in Hindooism ; but it may not 
have been frequently expressed, it may sometimes have 
been contradicted, in the earliest stage ; for the wrapt 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



63 



student, feeling it his highest calling and privilege to 
meditate on an Absolute Being in silence and awe, will 
have had such a practical reason for not confounding 
him with the world around, as no theoretical consist- 
ency could outweigh. It was far otherwise with the 
feeling of a relation between the human worshipper 
and the object of his adoration. This feeling was not 
resisted, but strengthened by his practical discipline. 
He was taught that he was intended to rise into the 
closest communion, nay, into actual identity with the 
Divinity : to realize such a state was the effort of his 
existence. 

The Brahmin believed that there was in man a ca- 
pacity for such intercourse or absorption as this ; but 
surely not in all men. Some are merely animal : 
there must be a race intended for this high converse, 
there must be a race excluded from it. One would 
not say, however, that the highest sage is the only 
man who is not merely animal. The warrior must 
have something of the higher diviner faculty ; it may 
be cultivated and ripened in him. Even the merchant, 
the traveller into other lands, must be more than a 
merely earthly creature. These orders of men should 
be kept apart from the lowest of all, — the mere hu- 
man animal, the Sudra. Yet the purely contempla- 
tive man should not be allowed too much intercourse 
even with these. He may educate them to be such 
men as they are meant to be, but he must keep 
himself and his race pure : this race must be care- 
fully trained to be the model of humanity, — to rise 
above humanity, — by perpetual meditation on the un- 
seen Brahm. 



64 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

The so-called laws or institutes of the Hindoos are 
all designed for this purpose. They are, properly- 
speaking, a system of education or discipline ; a 
method of fitting the highest man for fulfilling his voca- 
tion, and all the others for preserving their proper re- 
lation to him. The idea of a separation between the 
twice-born man and the merely animal man, is the 
fundamental one ; all the arrangements are for the pur- 
pose of giving effect to this idea, — all othe^ distinc- 
tions are secondary to it. The twice-born man must, 
by certain services or sacraments, the principal of 
which is reading the Vedas, maintain his relation to 
the unseen object. He must practise certain plans for 
lessening his dependence on mere material gratifica- 
tions ; he must cultivate rather the passive than the ac- 
tive qualities. In the progress of ages the two middle 
classes seem to have disappeared, or at least this is 
the prevailing Brahminical opinion. The system has 
undergone other modifications, till at length, in some 
places at least, it has so adapted itself to the different 
pursuits and occupations of men, as to offer an ex- 
cuse for the European notion that it was invented 
in an early stage of society by some legislator, who 
observed that labor must be divided in order to be suc- 
cessful, and that there is likely to be an hereditary 
aptitude for particular professions or trades. Such a 
notion seems to be refuted by the fact that, according 
to the early arrangement of castes, there was no accu- 
rate division of employments ; that persons of the same 
order were allowed to perform many which were un- 
like and incompatible. Nor does another plausible 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 65 

hypothesis, that the Brahmins were a conquering tribe 
and the Sudras a conquered one, seem to be more 
tenable. Those who have the best opportunities for 
comparing them, say that they can discover no such 
differences between them as would warrant the suppo- 
sition of their belonging to a different race, none greater 
than are naturally produced by meaner occupations and 
a sense of degradation during a long course of years. 
But the greatest objection to this opinion is, that the 
Sudras are not in any sense slaves, and never can have 
been such ; the Greeks were surprised to find all 
classes in India free citizens in some sense, in however 
low a one. So that probably we cannot get much fur- 
ther than the religious principle as the basis of the dis- 
tinction, — than the idea', I mean, that there is a ten- 
dency in men to become purely animal, and that there 
is a race of men in which this tendency is realized and 
perpetuated ; that there is in man that which may be 
raised to fellowship with the Divine ; and that there is a 
race in which this capacity is exhibited and transmitted. 
In spite then of the fact, that there are in the very 
earliest Hindoo Vedas prayers and hymns to light and 
fire, and to many natural powers, nay, though the 
liturgical part of them consists mainly of such prayers, 
we may fully admit the assertion, that the Brahmin is 
seeking after One Divine, unseen object ; that he is 
only asking these different creatures to tell him what 
that object is, and how he is to be found ; nay, that his 
aim in his whole life and discipline is to purify himself 
from outward, sensible things, that he may approach 
nearer to this One Source of Illumination. 



66 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

But then how can we explain the fact, that men set- 
ting this end before them, looking upon the most mys- 
terious powers in the universe as at best ladders to as- 
cend to the highest region, — ladders which the wise 
men could generally, in time, throw away, — should 
have become so utterly entangled in sensible outward 
idolatry as the modern Hindoo seems to be ? The 
explanation often given, that the ordinary gods are but 
the gods of the vulgar, that the learned man has alto- 
gether another view of them which he keeps to him- 
self, is quite unsatisfactory. For the point we want to 
ascertain is this, how the Brahmin came to suppose 
that the divers and manifold beings of whom the Hin- 
doo Pantheon consists, could be helps to the discovery 
or the presentation of the One Being ; how he could 
possibly be induced to reverse the whole order and ob- 
ject of his studies and discipline ; to introduce variety, 
that he might suggest the idea of unity ; to bring in a 
host of visible forms, that he might lead his disciples 
more certainly to that which is beyond their senses. 
I do not deny the possibility of such a scheme, but the 
origin and the steps of it should be explained. If a 
modern Brahmin confesses that he attaches no impor- 
tance to the things to which he seems to attach the 
greatest, we may accept his testimony against himself. 
Still more willingly we may believe one who says that 
he loves the simple faith which he thinks has departed, 
and that he will spend his life in efforts to restore it. 
But we cannot take the witness of either respecting their 
fathers. The process by which they arrived at one 
strange conclusion after another may have been as 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 67 

simple and natural a one as that by which their tradi- 
tions are discarded, or that by which they are traced to 
a deliberate purpose of imposture. 

And this, I believe, is actually the case. While the 
Brahmin was learning, by various arts, to practise ab- 
straction of spirit, was searching, by various helps, to 
arrive at the perception of the Perfect One, he felt that 
the light, the intelligence which entered into his own 
heart, that which raised him above his fellows, that 
which enabled him to see mysteries, must be the great 
expression of the Divine Being. Brahm becomes 
Brahma ; the light which flows from the source of 
light, the wisdom which comes from the fount of wis- 
dom is that which declares him, — this is his Name. 
In that character the initiated disciple is to worship 
him : no sacrifices need be offered to him, no temples 
need be raised to him. It is the inward and purified 
intellect which does him homage. A very sublime 
conception, you may be inclined to say ; one which it 
is no wonder that enlightened Brahmins in our day 
should wish to reproduce. 

But imagine yourselves in the school where this sub- 
lime doctrine was taught ; look at the self-satisfied, self- 
glorified person who is proclaiming it ; see how he has 
gone on, step by step, till, from a profound idea of some 
awful, absolute Being, he has passed into the habitual 
conviction that this Being is himself; he has become 
his own God. Mark what contempt he manifests for 
persons about him, what utter inhumanity has grown 
out of this notion that he is the very perfection of hu- 
manity, that he is above it. Suppose an earnest, en- 



68 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

thusiastic disciple, struck with the contradiction, saying 
to himself, " Is this the devout, the self-losing, absorbed 
Brahmin whom I was taught to wonder at, — whose 
teaching at first seemed to me so sublime ? " In the 
tumult of his feelings, in the sadness of his disap- 
pointment, he goes forth from the school into Nature. 
What a change he finds there ! What a sense of re- 
freshment, freedom, calmness, penetrates through his 
whole being ! . Surely he has been living till this time 
in a close, pent-up atmosphere, thinking only of him 
self; ever hoping, and hoping in vain, to find his 
God in himself. But is he not here ? What a won- 
derful order there is through this wide universe ; an 
order of day and night ; of seasons of heat and sea- 
sons of rain ; an order in the* planets over our heads ; 
an order in the growth of the flowers at our feet ; an 
order in the overflowings of the mighty river. Yes, his 
name is the Preserver ! Conceive of him under that 
name, — worship him under that name, — call him Vish- 
nu : bid men rejoice that they have such an One car- 
ing for them. The name, perhaps, had been known be- 
fore in the Brahminical school. It had been one thought, 
among many, that Brahma weIs the preserver of things : 
now it becomes the name. Hundreds of hearts are 
ready to welcome it : even the poor Sudra can look 
up, and feel that it has a sound of blessing to him. 
And now the older worship becomes, comparatively, 
obsolete ; the young reformer has prevailed. The 
Brahminical order must take up his doctrine, and pro- 
claim it, and reconcile it as they can with that which 
they held before : if they do not so, a sect of Vishnu 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 69 

worshippers will form themselves, — men will go out 
into the deserts and proclaim this faith, without respect 
to the laws of family or caste at all. 

In some such way as this, I conceive, the popular 
Vishnu worship may have supplanted the original 
Brahma worship. It would be surely hard to say that 
the alteration was in itself for the worse ; yet the effect 
of it must, undoubtedly, have been to withdraw the 
idea of divinity from the inner sanctuary in which it 
had dwelt ; to bring it forth into the world. Then tem- 
ples would be raised, the fruits of the earth offered, 
with songs and symbols, to the great Preserver. But 
soon there will have been a fearful reaction against 
this kind of service. How could the mere feeling of a 
beneficent Guardian of the Earth help men who were 
tormented with a sense of inward evil ? What was 
there in such a Being at all corresponding to the dark 
visions which continually rose before them, whether 
they looked behind or before, to the past or the future ? 
But was there nothing in nature which did corre- 
spond to these inward agonies, which seemed to be the 
very echo of them ? Were there no frightful floods 
and earthquakes, — was there not_ a continual process 
of destruction going on in the universe ? Is not death 
the mighty king to whom all must do homage ? Poor 
worshippers of Vishnu, how miserably you are striving 
to hide the realities of the world from your eyes, — to 
strew garlands over the grave ! You have never yet 
dared to pronounce the real name : it is Siva the De- 
stroyer. If you know your own state, and what you 
have to fear, you will invoke that name, — you will 



70 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

propitiate that divinity. And do not think to approach 
him with such oblations as are signs of plenty and 
gladness. It is blood he craves for ; the blood of your 
children and of yourselves. No sacrifices but these 
can appease his wrath, or abate the misery which he 
is sending to you, and designing for you. Here was 
another deep conviction working in the heart of the 
Hindoo, and destined to produce the most fearful fruits, 
from generation to generation. The Brahmin could 
not allay it, — could not reduce it under his old notion 
of the Brahma, the one celestial Intelligence, who spoke 
only in the Wise. The Siva sect rose up in fierce an- 
tagonism to the Vishnu sect. He must endeavor to 
bring the different ideas into reconciliation ; to assign 
the Brahma, the Vishnu, the Siva, each a part in the 
arrangement of Nature, and in the different ages of the 
universe. Religious books are composed, some with 
the Vishnu, some with the Siva element predominant 
in them ; the former with a gracious, the latter with a 
stern, forbidding aspect ; the first not denying the dark 
principle, — only keeping it in the back-ground; the 
latter doing homage to the Preserver, but confessing 
the greater might of the Destroyer. 

Soon the unsatisfied heart feels another necessity. 
If it be true (and can it be denied?) that the power 
which divides and annihilates has such a direct influ- 
ence over the destinies of the world, may not the Pre- 
server yet have somewhere an undisturbed reign ; and 
may he not descend from that region, at certain peri- 
ods, to claim his rights over this earth too, — to create 
again that which has perished ? Is there not a princi- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 71 

pie of Restoration implied in Preservation ; nay, in 
Destruction itself? The animals die, but the race sur- 
vives : and have there not been in the ages of man 
periods of deepest calamity, when all things seemed 
to sink in utter ruin, followed by bright sunny days, — 
the earth coming forth out of darkness into light ! 
These must have been the times of Vishnu's descent 
The animals, we have been told, all exhibit some side 
or aspect of the divinity, may have been, originally, 
portions of it. In these he may have appeared. Men 
may have been able, without becoming absorbed, to 
behold him, and converse with him. Again, the priest 
will partly have led the popular conviction, partly 
have been led by it. He will have arranged the num- 
ber and method of these Vishnu incarnations, reducing 
dreams to a system, and sanctioning the hope that there 
might be an avatar, which should restore all things. 

But these dreams were not sufficient. Was not a 
kind and gracious Rajah who felt for his poor subjects 
one in whom the Divinity was more likely to manifest 
himself, than in any of those creatures, however sacred, 
of which man is practically the master ? Have we 
not always felt that a man was permitted, in some mys- 
terious way, to contemplate the Divine Being, — to be- 
come one with him ? Why may not He in such a 
form, so much more beautiful than any other, appear 
to us ? The bright Krishna becomes the centre of 
innumerable legends. He is felt to be the true form 
of the Divine Deliverer. As other dreadful appari- 
tions rise up beside Siva, and claim the kind of wor- 
ship which is offered to him, — as there comes forth 



72 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

even a Kali to be a patroness of murder, to make 
strangling a virtue, — this image of a friend and pro- 
tector of the helpless is the more eagerly sought after 
and delighted in. 

At each step in this process more of the forms and 
images of outward nature will have been called in, to 
express the conception of which the heart was full ; at 
each step the theoretic man will have been obliged to 
incorporate new schemes of the universe, new specu- 
lations upon a4l questions — astronomical, geological, 
physiological, metaphysical — into his theology, in order 
to connect the later and more popular outgrowths of 
it with the original root. Nevertheless, it is certain 
that, amidst all these definite conceptions and idolatrous 
forms, the primary idea of an Inconceivable, Abso- 
lute, Unseen Being, whom it is the highest glory of the 
holiest man to behold, and in whom he is to be lost, has 
survived, — survived not as a theory of some learned 
Brahmin, but as so deep and essential an article of pop- 
ular faith, that all other habitual convictions, nay, the 
reverence for the Brahminical order itself, which seems 
worked into the very tissue of Hindoo society, must 
give place to it. Religious orders, formed without any 
reference to distinction of castes, shall be followed and 
reverenced in proportion as this seems to be the end of 
their existence : the perfectly abstracted Yogi shall be 
looked upon as greater, because in the way to a higher 
knowledge, than he who can explain all the order of 
nature. In fact, in the worst form of what may be sup- 
posed modern corruptions, we may trace the original 
feeling at work. The woman who gives up herself to 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 73 

death on her husband's funeral pile, is exhibiting the 
same deep sense of the necessity of self-abandonment, 
self-sacrifice, which is implied in the desire of the 
contemplative man to be absorbed into the Divine 
Essence. 

We have, then, a faith presented to us here, which 
the more we think of it, the more fairly we consider 
its apparent anomalies, the more light we receive re- 
specting it from different and contradictory reports, the 
more heartily and affectionately we sympathize with 
the feelings of our fellow-men, the more we know of 
ourselves, will awaken in us the more of reflection, 
and wonder, and awe. It is the faith, not of savages, 
but of men in whose minds respect for learning has 
occupied all but the highest place ; men whose whole 
commonwealth is modelled upon the notion, that the 
seer, the learned man, ought to be at the head, — that 
all other people should look up to him. At the same 
time, these learned men have not been able to devise a 
belief at their pleasure for those whom they have gov- 
erned. Strong necessities have come forth out of the 
heart of the people, demanding satisfaction, — compel- 
ling the wise men to remould their system, yet recog- 
nizing the worth and reality of that higher, older prin- 
ciple, which they seem to set at naught. I do not think 
it would be easy to find a fairer test of those assertions 
respecting the religions of mankind which I proposed 
to examine. 

The first of them — that there are deep truths im- 
plied in each of these systems — receives, it seems to 
me, abundant confirmation from even the hasty glance 
6 



74 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

we have been able to take of Hindooism. In the 
midst of the extravagances and horrors which the most 
favorable testimonies prove it to have brought forth, 
and which have multiplied, not diminished, as it has 
expanded, we have been able to trace some convictions 
so sacred, so bound up in the heart of the people for 
thousands of years, as to sustain the credit of mon- 
strous fictions, to make tormenting practices endurable ; 
convictions which have been able to create and perpet- 
uate a complicated form of society, and to defy the 
power of victorious invaders. 

But it is affirmed next, that these deep convictions 
will in time disengage themselves from the theological 
element in which they dwell ; that theology being only 
an inadequate attempt to explain the phenomena of the 
universe. Now, I have been careful that you should 
notice how much of the Hindoo system is an attempt 
to explain the phenomena of the universe ; it was 
scarcely necessary for me to remark how ineffectual a 
one. But if you have followed the course of my ob- 
servations, still more if you have made observations 
for yourselves, you will, I think, be convinced that 
these theories about the world are precisely the non- 
theological elements of the system ; precisely that which 
has been added to the theology, and become a part of 
it, in consequence of the inability of the Hindoo to 
distinguish between God and the world. His inward 
convictions, from first to last, have had reference to 
the Absolute, Unseen God, and to his relations with 
man. The drapery of these convictions has been his 
doctrine about nature. Nor can that idolatrous, de- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 75 

grading, often filthy drapery ever be cast away, unless 
it can be shown him that the theological riddles, for 
which he has been seeking a solution in nature so long 
and not finding it, — which are bound up with the 
deepest wants of his heart, — can receive their explana- 
tion somewhere else. 

But, most of all, the notion that all ideas respecting 
an unseen world are produced by the religious faculty 
in man, might seem to receive countenance from the 
Hindoo records. How active that faculty has been, 
what worlds it has called into existence, whilst there 
were no outward transactions to relate, or no one to re- 
late them, we have seen. The Hindoo in action the 
idlest, is in imagining, dreaming, combining, the most 
busy of all human creatures. But is this all we have 
learnt ? Have we not found also an assurance in the 
mind of these people that all the efforts of thought in 
them must originate in a communication from above, 
and require fresh communications to meet them ? In 
the thinking, or reasoning, or religious faculty, call it 
what you will, — or, as I should say, in the man's own 
heart, in his inmost being, — have arisen desires and 
longings after converse with the unseen world, with 
some living being in that unseen world, with some one 
between whom and himself he feels there is a relation. 
His religious books echo the cry ; they mutter a half 
response to it : but the response is only the question 
thrown into a more definite form. The highest student 
meditates on the problem, and repeats his own 
thoughts ; or, more ^probably, what some ancient per- 
son, who meditated and conversed with the Divinity, 



76 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

said about it; or what some other said that he said. 
The circle is a very weary one ; if we calmly con- 
sider it, and what kind of comfort those receive who 
are ever revolving in it, we shall confess that the Hin- 
doo is right in his belief, that the wisdom of which he 
sees the image and reflection must speak and declare 
itself to him ; that he cannot always be left to grope 
his way amidst the shadows which it casts in his own 
mind, or in the world around him. I ask nothing more 
than the Hindoo system and the Hindoo life as evi- 
dence that there is that in man which demands a reve- 
lation, — that there is not that in him which makes the 
revelation. I ask no clearer proof of the fact, that 
whenever the religious feeling or instinct in man works 
freely, without an historical revelation, it must beget a 
system of priestcraft. It must be satisfied by God, or 
overlaid by man, or stifled altogether. 

The question still remains : Is the help to this state 
of things to come from within the system ? I hinted 
that there are, or have been, Hindoo patriots who have 
dreamed of bringing back the first state of Brahminism, 
setting up the Monotheism of the older Vedas, sweep- 
ing away the accumulations of centuries. But if the 
original Brahminism itself contained the great puzzle 
of, all subsequent ages ; if the Monotheism of the Ve- 
das admitted the doubt whether man, nay, whether all 
things, might not be a part of the Divinity ; if those ac- 
cumulations of centuries were the inevitable results of 
anxieties which men could only quell by destroying 
themselves, it seems somewhat ^unreasonable to go 
back to the beginning of a series, every step of which, 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 77 

so far as we can tell, would have to be repeated. Or, 
if the notion be that some form of Monotheism, not 
involving the idea of direct connection between God 
and Man, or God and Nature, might supersede the ex- 
isting superstition, is it not playing with words to speak 
of this as a revival or restoration ? must it not be sim- 
ply a denial of the fundamental principle of the whole 
system ? We need not, however, enter upon this sub- 
ject at present, for both these experiments have been 
made under every possible advantage. Buddhism, a 
doctrine to which I hope to devote a separate/ Lecture, 
may, at least under one of its aspects, be regarded as a 
formal effort to revive the original Brahminical idea ; 
an effort not without very important results, which have 
affected a large portion of the world ; but which has 
not displaced Hindooism on its proper soil, and which, 
I think, we shall find is scarcely the doctrine any 
modern Hindoo reformer would desire to produce. 
To the other experiment I have alluded already, — it is 
that of Mahometanism. A considerable number of the 
Hindoo race were converted to this faith, and profess 
it to this day. But it could take no hold of the heart 
of the people, for it solved no one difficulty which was 
perplexing them ; it affirmed a truth which staggered 
them, and before which they bowed ; one, however, 
which in this form coalesced with scarcely any condi- 
tions of their intellectual or of their moral being. 

Whether Christianity can do for the Hindoo what 
these systems have not done, is a question for our fu- 
ture consideration. One or two remarks I would make 
here which may remove some difficulties from that in- 



78 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

quiry, and which seem to arise naturally out of the 
present subject. I cannot feel surprise that the states- 
men and scholars of British India, observing the failure 
of the Mahometans to overthrow the faith and institu- 
tions of this strange people, should have pressed 
strongly upon their own government the duty of re- 
specting what it had not power to subvert. I cannot 
believe that an indifference to evils which were con- 
tinually before their eyes, or a feeling that the safety 
of Englis*h dominion is the highest of all considera- 
tions, can have induced men often of the greatest cul- 
tivation and humanity to protest against the efforts 
which some of their countrymen were making to 
spread the faith of Europe in the East. It is much 
pleasanter, and v surely more reasonable, to believe 
that they felt there was something hard-hearted, al- 
most impious, in trampling upon convictions which 
had struck root into the soil for many thousand years, 
which had created the whole fabric of society. For 
such a feeling one is bound to entertain the greatest 
respect ; only I think men generally so clear-sighted 
must by this time have perceived that there was an 
important oversight in the inference which they drew 
from it. No doubt it is a very serious thing to assault 
the belief, even the prejudices, of any ancient people. 
But this assault had already been made ; every circum- 
stance which brought Englishmen into contact with 
the Hindoo was a repetition of it. When all nature 
is peopled with divinities, it does not require an adverse 
theologian to wound the prejudices of the worshipper, 
— the army commissary, the judge, the ordinary trav- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 79 

eller, must interfere with them continually. Above 
all, when it came to be perceived, as it would of course 
be in time perceived by any benevolent government, 
that Englishmen ought not to be settled in a country 
without communicating to its inhabitants some portion 
of that knowledge which they possess, or rather, when 
it was found that a people so eager for information, so 
quick in receiving it, as the Hindoos, would not be 
content until they had learnt the secret of our mechan- 
ical achievements, — it was certain that some cherished 
tenet must be outraged, some express statement in the 
religious books contradicted, if the teacher of European 
science should advance beyond his alphabet. Such 
considerations do not prove that the idea of respecting 
a people's convictions is a false one ; they show only 
that there are certain accidents of these convictions 
which we are not only permitted, but obliged, to make 
light of. Just in proportion to that necessity which is 
laid upon us for showing the Hindoo that visible things 
cannot be treated with the reverence which he has been 
taught to feel for them, should be our desire and de- 
termination to preserve him from the danger to which 
he is certainly exposed, of thinking that all the ques- 
tionings of his fathers respecting the invisible world 
had no purpose or meaning. These questionings be- 
long to the most radical portion of the Hindoo mind ; 
in them you see what the Hindoo is, what his existence 
means, and how he has been able to stamp such an 
image of himself upon society. To these questionings 
he owes the activity of his intellect and imagination 
when all his other tendencies and his outward circum- 



80 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

stances would make him indolent ; hence have arisen 
his love of letters and his desire for science. But the 
time has evidently come when he cannot be question- 
ing merely ; he must have answers. I contend that 
he who is able to give them is not a destroyer, but a 
preserver ; that he will have a right to boast of having 
upholden all that was strongest and most permanent in 
the Hindoo life and character, while English influences 
in general were, however innocently and inevitably, 
threatening to undermine them. I concede with equal 
readiness, (that if Christianity do not offer these \ 
answers, it cannot make this boast ; it must leave to 
some other instrument the work of regenerating Hin- 
dostan. As the question is brought to this test, let us 
gather up in a few words the enigmas which have tor- 
mented the Hindoo so long, and of which, for the sake 
of his practical life, he demands a solution. 

First, he has had the deepest assurance that God 
must be an Absolute and Living Being, who can be 
satisfied with nothing less perfect than himself; and 
yet he has an equally deep conviction that this Abso- 
lute and Eternal Being cannot merely live in self-con- 
templation ; that there must be some object in which 
he sees his image reflected. The thought is expressed 
with great earnestness and beauty in one of the early 
Vedas, where Brahm is introduced seeking for the im- 
age of himself. The words which are imputed to him 
express the strong feeling, that a merely solitary, self- 
seeking, abstracted being would be one whom a man, 
experiencing his own need of sympathy and fellowship, 
could not bear to contemplate. The thought expands 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 81 

itself through the whole Hindoo mythology. It utters 
itself from the beginning in the idea of a Brahma, as 
well as a Brahm ; it gives birth to all the later notions 
of goddesses dwelling beside the gods. If no voice 
comes from the secret place to interpret this mighty 
contradiction which the learned man has perceived, 
which the most ignorant Hindoo feels, their thoughts of 
God and their human life must continue a hopeless 
maze. 

For the perplexity which grows out of this lies close 
to personal, as well as social, existence. May not man 
himself be this partner of the Divinity ? If he is, what 
means that deep assurance of a Divinity retired within 
the sanctity and awfulness of his own nature ? — if he 
is not, what mean these yearnings in the spirit after the 
knowledge of him ; this promise in the heart that it 
may be attained ; this discontent while it is wanting ? 
It is an idle thing to cut this knot by affirming either 
principle and denying the other ; all confusions, theo- 
retical and practical, of the Hindoo arise from the at- 
tempt to do this, and from the experience of its impos- 
sibility ; only if you can show that they have been 
reconciled, and how, will you lead him to any clearness 
or freedom. 

Again, man has this glorious faculty ; but a portion 
of men seem without it. It must dwell in a caste ; the 
rest must be cut off from it. Leave this thought to 
work, and it will bring forth the fruits which it has 
brought forth hitherto. The modern Hindoo, with his 
European culture and science, will be just as con- 
temptuous to all who want his information and intellect 



82 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

as the Brahmins of old ; the twice -born notion may 
change its form, in effect it will be as rampant and ty- 
rannical as ever. You cannot extirpate it, until you 
justify it, — until you can show that some eternal truth 
lies in the distinction, and yet that it excludes no hu- 
man creature ; that it asserts the common privilege of 
Brahmin and Sudra. 

Then we come to another set of questions. This 
Absolute Being, what manner of being is he? If it 
be true that he stands in some relation to us and the 
world, in what relation ? Is he benignant, or hateful ? 
is he a preserver or destroyer ? You cannot answer 
the question with any vague flourishes of rhetoric. 
The Hindoo is willing enough to acknowledge a kind 
and gracious ruler, but the worshipper of Siva meets 
you with a set of facts. Here is misery, here is death. 
You must encounter these facts, — you cannot blink 
them. You must be able to say, " I can show that this 
misery and death do not interfere with the idea of a 
God of Order, Mercy, Love ; I can show it by practi- 
cal tokens and demonstrations " ; otherwise you must 
leave the sects to fight on.for ever, with a tolerable 
certainty that the darker will in general have the as- 
cendency. Again, the idea of a struggle between life 
and death, order and disorder, good and evil, and of 
the victory having been achieved by the God actually 
descending into the battle-field, and himself taking part 
in the strife ; the idea that he must assume some form 
which is subject to all the accidents of earthly calamity ; 
this is one which a European may easily scoff at, when 
he sees it presented to him in the Hindoo stories, and, 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 83 

doubtless, he will find many a learned Brahmin who is 
ready, with more or less reserve, to scoff too, nay, to 
represent such a notion as quite incompatible with the 
higher Brahminical theology. But let it be well con- 
sidered that a stern demand of the popular conscience 
carries with it a very mighty witness ; if the learned 
order bows to that demand, allows the people to clothe 
their inward belief in their own shapes, and reduces 
their crudities to a system, we may be sure that the faith 
of the taught is stronger and more vital than that of the 
teacher ; it may be grosser, but it must contain at 
least as real an element. Except this part of the Hin- 
doo conviction can be recognized ; unless it can be 
shown how the belief of such a divine descent is com- 
patible with the highest idea any Brahmin can enter- 
tain of the divine perfection, or of man's spirit being 
intended to ascend to the apprehension and participa- 
tion of it ; I cannot see how the Hindoo race can ever 
be permanently raised above its present degradation, 
or how that respect and justice, which have been so 
passionately demanded for the faith and institutions of 
centuries, can be practically rendered. Once more, — 
It is, undoubtedly, a right thing in a government to sup- 
press, by actual edict and physical force, human sacri- 
fices. The Roman, tolerant as he was of all polythe- 
istic systems in the provinces, took this course in our 
own country when he was dealing with the practices 
of Druidical worship. But neither by this act, nor by 
establishing municipal institutions in Britain, nor by 
building and encouraging the natives to build baths and 
porticos and temples, did he provide any real substi- 



84 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



tute for those dark, mysterious thoughts of the unseen 
world, which had haunted the mind of the Celt under 
his oaks, and which found a fearful expression in the 
sacrifices of children or of men. Those thoughts were 
the stamina of the British heart ; when an external 
civilization expelled them, what remained was a feeble 
colony, groaning for help to the masters who could 
give it help no longer ; a colony which needed to have 
all its arts and polish destroyed by a people possessing 
some real faith, some inward strength, that the soil 
might, by this process, be prepared to bear genuine 
native fruits. It will be the same with Hindostan, if, 
while we put down the burnings of widows, and be- 
stow a culture which makes such practices disgusting 
to its inhabitants, we are not able to show them what 
is the true form of self-immolation, and how wife, and 
maiden, and widow, — how men, whether called to the 
contemplative or active life, — may practise it. 

I know that I am asking no light thing of any faith 
when I say, All this it must do if it is to satisfy the 
heart and conscience of this Asiatic people. But let 
me ask you, before I conclude, whether a faith which 
does less than this can satisfy your hearts and conscien- 
ces ? We are in a world of action, and energy, and 
enterprise, more unlike that dreaming and speculative 
world we have been hearing of, than the soil and climate 
of England are unlike those of Hindostan. And yet 
I will be bold to say it, the same thoughts which stir 
the spirit of the Indian sage and the Indian Sudra are 
working secretly beneath all our bustling life, are af- 
fecting the councils of statesmen, are entering into the 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 85 

meditations of the moralists and metaphysicians who 
most despise theology ; in another form are disturbing 
the heart of the country peasant, and of the dweller in 
St. Giles's. They are such questions as these, — "What 
do we worship ? A dream, or a real Being ? One 
wholly removed from us, or one related to us ? Is he 
a Preserver, or a Destroyer ? Has Death explained its 
meaning to us, or is it still a horrible riddle ? Is it still 
uncertain whether Life or Death is master of the world, 
or how has the uncertainty been removed ? What is 
the evil which I find in myself ? Is it myself ? Must 
I perish in order that it may perish, or can it be in any 
wise separated from me ? Can I give up myself, and 
yet live ? What are these desires which I feel in my- 
self for something unseen, glorious, and perfect ? Are 
they all fantasy, or can they be realized ? If they 
can, by what means ? Has I^e to whom they point 
made himself known to me ? How am I connected 
with Him ? Must I utterly renounce all the things 
about me, that I may be absorbed into Him, or is there 
any way in which I can devote them and myself to 
Him, and only know Him the better by filling my place 
among them ? These are the great human questions ; 
distance in time and space does not affect them ; if we 
are not concerned with them it is because we have 
not yet ceased to be savages, or because we are re- 
turning, through an extreme civilization, into the state 
of savages : if they do occupy us, we shall find that 
there can be but one answer to them for the English- 
man and the Hindoo. 



LECTURE III. 

Buddhism. Its Origin and Diffusion. Its Va'rious 
Forms. The Lama. Buddhism and its Rivals in 
China. 

In my former Lectures I have spoken of two relig- 
ions, very opposite in their character, which have ex- 
ercised an influence over a large portion of the world, 
— the Mahometan and the Hindoo. The former, we 
said, could only thrive when it was in action ; the prop- 
er element of the othe%was rest. They were brought 
face to face in Hindostan. The Islamite triumphed, 
as might have been expected ; but there was a passive 
strength in the Hindoo, which ultimately kept its 
ground, and enables him to say that his system has 
endured for three thousand years. 

I hinted that it had had struggles with a very differ- 
ent kind of enemy from the Mahometan, — with a doc- 
trine in many of its essential peculiarities lijte its own. 
That doctrine is the Buddhist* the faith of Thibet, of 
Siam, of the Burmese Empire, of Cochin China, Japan, 
Ceylon ; the popular, though not the state, faith of 
China. It is said to number above three hundred mil- 
lions of people among its disciples ; to be, therefore, 
by far the most prevailing religion which does exist, or 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 87 

ever has existed, in the world. It is surely, then, de- 
serving of earnest investigation ; there must be some- 
thing in it which has given it this wide diffusion. It 
must express some necessities of man's heart, some 
necessities of our own. 

I propose, in the present Lecture, to inquire what 
these are ; to search for the main principle of Budd- 
hism ; to consider in what relation it stands to those re- 
ligions of which we have spoken ; lastly, to inquire 
how it is connected with two other systems which 
divide with it the Celestial Empire. 

A faith which is spread over such a number of coun- 
tries, many of them very different from each other in 
outward circumstances, perhaps even in race and early 
cultivation, must present great varieties, which may 
seem to make the use of a common name rather a 
convenient refuge for our ignorance, than a proof that 
they have really any connection. Undoubtedly our 
information respecting the different forms of Buddhism 
is still very imperfect, and we have not the same means 
of correcting and enlarging it as in the case of coun- 
tries which have fallen under our own dominion. Cey- 
lon is, I believe, the only British possession in which 
pure Buddhism is professed. Nevertheless, I am con- 
vinced that the intelligent travellers and residents who 
have given us accounts of what they have seen or heard 
in the different countries I have enumerated, or of what 
they have read in the books which these countries ac- 
count sacred, have not been mistaken in believing that 
the fundamental doctrine is the same in all. The oppo- 
sition between different views of the system, great as it 



88 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



is, admits, I think, of a tolerably easy explanation ; easy, 
at least, if we do not merely look to find a meaning 
in the dry records of other people's notions or practices, 
but compare them with what we have felt and experi- 
enced in our own lives. The numerous phases, how- 
ever, which the system assumes, make it very desira- 
ble that we should ascertain from what country it was 
derived, where we may seek for the first form of it. 
On this subject there is some, but, I think, now not 
much, difference of opinion. The external arguments 
which induced Sir William Jones, and some eminent 
scholars of the last century, to suppose that its native 
seat could not have been Hindostan, have given way 
to later and fuller information. There was a stronger 
internal argument, arising from a comparison of the 
Brahminical and Buddhist faith, which is also, it seems 
to me, untenable ; but which is well worth considering, 
and which at once connects the present subject with 
that of the last Lecture. 

We do not adequately describe the condition of 
Hindostan, by saying that the priests constitute its lead- 
ing caste. The whole form of society has a sacerdo- 
tal stamp upon it ; it has moulded itself in conformity 
with a religious idea; not, as some have fancied, with 
a professional or mercantile one. And yet, when we 
look into the meaning of this system, it explains itself 
by the doctrine that there is in man a capacity for be- 
holding the Unseen Being, and that there is in man an 
animal nature which admits of no Divine converse. 
The Brahmin is the learned, divine, absorbed man, 
the end of whose existence is to become one with 
Brahm. 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 89 

Brahm himself, I observed, was emphatically an In- 
telligence, a thinking, not a commanding being, — one 
from whose thoughts all the universe has flowed out, 
not one by whose will it has been created. He is a 
higher priest, not in any sense a sovereign ; herein 
standing in the most direct contrast to the object of 
Mahometan worship. Between, then, the God and the 
worshipper there is the most direct affinity, which may 
become identity. Intelligence is to be the characteristic 
of both. The hereditary caste is to preserve this Intelli- 
gence ; its discipline to prevent it from being debased 
by mixture with people in whom the lower nature is 
predominant, or by contact with things which may 
make it predominant in themselves. 

Now that any set of men should arise in a society 
constituted like that of Hindostan, to deny the exist- 
ence of a special caste of priests, might not seem sur- 
prising ; for one might conjecture that there would be 
popular reactions against so very strict and exclusive 
a system. We saw that there had been such popular 
reactions in Hindostan. They took this form. They 
demanded a being less abstract than Brahm ; not a mere 
thinking being, but one who should exercise actual influ- 
ence over the arrangements of Nature and the world, — 
one to whom its good or its evil might be ascribed, — 
one who should not merely cultivate intercourse with 
an absorbed devotee, but should enter into fellowship 
with human creatures in their ordinary condition. To 
such strong workings of popular feeling, to such cries 
of the popular heart, we traced the Vishnu and Siva 
worship, which the priests had been compelled to in- 
7 



90 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

corporate with that older principle it seemed striving 
to subvert. In these cases the priestly caste, whatever 
rude shocks it may have sustained, nevertheless kept 
its ground, even in the hearts of the people who as- 
sailed it. In fact, nothing proves more clearly than 
such changes, how much the reverence for a priestly 
order has been bound up with the sympathies and char- 
acter of this nation. Neither the awakening of im- 
pulses which the priests could not control, nor conquest 
by such an utterly unsacerdotal people as the Mahom- 
etans, has availed to awaken this reverence. The 
priests have adapted themselves to feelings which they 
could not subdue ; their authority has waxed stronger 
by a doctrine which threatened to crush it and the pop- 
ular faith together. 

But the Buddhist doctrine cannot in any wise be 
identified with this kind of movement. The word 
Buddha, it seems to be admitted on all hands, means 
Intelligence. That men ought to worship pure Intel- 
ligence, must have been the first proclamation of the 
original Buddhists. The deduction from this must have 
been, that no caste of priests was necessary for such 
worship. Could this doctrine have originated on the 
soil of Hindostan ? I do not wonder that thoughtful 
persons, especially those whose experience made them 
aware of the facts I have just alluded to, should have 
said that it could not : that a theory so contrary to the 
tendencies of Hindoos from generation to generation, 
must have come from some other region, and been 
rudely forced for a time upon this. But plausible as 
such an hypothesis may seem, I think I have given you 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 91 

sufficient reason for distrusting it. The sacerdotal 
principle has indeed struck its roots very deep into the 
Indian soil, probably from as early a time as any to 
which we can look back. It has shown itself to be, in 
some form or other, inseparable from that soil. But it 
has grown up side by side with another principle, from 
which, at times, it is hardly distinguishable ; the rever- 
ence for human intelligence ; the disposition to make 
this the great Brahminical characteristic. It is quite 
conceivable, then, that from a very early time two sets 
of men may have coexisted in Hindostan ; one com- 
posing an hereditary order of priests, the other a mere 
order of sages or devotees. They coexist in India to 
the present day, on terms not probably of sympathy, 
but also not of absolute opposition or repulsion. The 
Greek writers allude to two classes seen by the soldiers 
of Alexander, between whom it has been reasonably 
enough supposed that a relation similar to this may 
have subsisted. 

Both will alike have aimed at converse with the pure 
Intelligence, absorption into him. Both therefore will 
have been far removed from any wish to substitute for 
this object of worship one of a more visible and earth- 
ly character. But different circumstances may have 
operated to draw each of them into closer connection 
with that which is visible. The hereditary priest will 
have maintained his position by taking part in civil em- 
ployments, — will gradually have exhibited less of the 
higher and more abstracted character. The devo- 
tee will have been reverenced by the people for retain- 
ing and carrying out this character. Thus he will have 



92 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

been brought into greater sympathy with them ; will 
have been induced to symbolize the object of his wor- 
ship, that it might be more apparent to ordinary men. 
In this way, perhaps, we may account for the appear- 
ance of temples, possessing the characteristics of Buddh- 
ism, which must have existed in Hindostan from a 
very early period. Gradually the distinction between 
these classes will have become more marked and defi- 
nite. Sages will have appeared calling upon men to 
adore Buddha in purity and simplicity, denouncing the 
hereditary caste, denouncing the books upon which they 
rested their pretensions, acknowledging a modified 
sympathy with the worship of the people as opposed 
to that of the Brahmins. In what light these sages 
were regarded we shall consider hereafter ; now it is 
only necessary to observe that there are the widest dif- 
ferences of opinion among Buddhists respecting the 
time in which the original sage, the first Buddhist teach- 
er, flourished. That one Sakya Muni appeared in the 
sixth century before Christ, who produced an effect 
upon the inhabitants of India of the kind I have just 
described, and that he left a series of successors, seems 
to be ascertained. But he was in all probability only 
the rekindler of feelings, which had been existing pre- 
viously ; only the person who formally set them in op- 
position to the Brahminical tendencies with which they 
had been hitherto, though by somewhat loose and fra- 
gile links, associated. Although, then, I would by no 
means support a paradox which has had some counte- 
nance from learned men, but not from the most learned 
or those who have examined the subject 'rnost, that 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 93 

Buddhism was the original doctrine, of which Brahmin- 
ism was a depravation, — though such an opinion has 
to struggle with the greatest opposition of outward facts, 
and is, I think, also quite inconsistent with the respec- 
tive character of the two systems ; yet I imagine we 
must look upon Hindostan as the place from which 
both have started, must assume that they were branches 
from the same root, and that their separation, however 
decided at last, was a slow and gradual work. Ulti- 
mately the systems did come into direct collision, and 
it became evident that they could not dwell together on 
the same soil. The Brahminical succeeded in expel- 
ling its rival from Hindostan, and it went forth to seek 
and to find an asylum, first in one, then in another of 
those numerous Asiatic countries which it now claims 
as its own. 

This view of the origin of Buddhism may be a great 
help, I think, in reconciling the very opposite reports 
of it which we obtain from those who have seen it in 
different, or even in the same, localities. The extreme 
Polytheism of India we found was not so incompatible 
with what was said of its original Monotheism, as it ap- 
peared at first. But what are we to say of a doctrine 
which is sometimes represented as one of almost per- 
fect Theism ; sometimes as direct Atheism ; sometimes 
as having the closest analogy to what in a Greek phi- 
losopher, or in a modern philosopher, would be called 
Pantheism ; sometimes as the worship of human saints 
or heroes ; sometimes as altogether symbolical ; some- 
times as full of the highest abstract speculation ; some- 
times as vulgar idolatry ? Strange as it may seem, 



94 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the same doctrine is, I believe, capable of assuming all 
these different phases ; no one of them can be thorough- 
ly understood without reference to the other. Each is 
very imperfectly denoted by the names which I have 
used ; for the feelings of good and evil, which work 
in the hearts* of human beings, can never be satisfac- 
torily expressed by mere labels describing a notion or 
theory. 

I. Thus, to begin with the first supposition. Buddh- 
ism is, as we have seen, an attempt at the highest, 
least material idea of divinity. Buddha is clear light, 
perfect wisdom. You must not try to conceive of him 
as doing any thing. Rest is not so much his attribute, 
as his very essence. He is One, the One ; and it is only 
with the inward eye, purged from sensual corruptions, 
and steadily fixed on the contemplation of unity, that he 
can in any wise be apprehended. For the natural eye 
of the ordinary man views a multiplicity of things, 
each thing divided and separate from the other. The 
natural eye takes account only of appearances ; it re- 
quires the severest discipline for a man to behold the 
reality. This is surely Theism in its highest form and 
conception. It is something much more than we are 
wont to mean by that word, for by a Deist or Theist we 
often describe a person who does not deny the exist- 
ence of God ; who admits it as a sort of ultimate fact, 
as the Hercules' pillar of the universe. But to the 
Buddhist, the belief in God is the most awful, and at 
the same time the most real, of all thoughts ; one not 
thrust back into the corner of a mind which is occupied 
by every thing else, but which he thinks demands the 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 95 

highest and most refined exercise of all the faculty that 
he has. It is something which is to make a change in 
himself, which is at once to destroy him and to perfect 
him. And the effect is a practical one. Buddha is 
ever at rest. Can his worshippers be turbulent ? Can 
he admit any rude or violent passions into his heart? 
He must cultivate gentleness, evenness, all serene and 
peaceful qualities, reverence and tenderness to all crea- 
tures, or he is not in his rightful state. He is not 
tempted, or obliged, as the Brahmin is, to look upon 
any human creature as merely animal, as excluded 
even from the highest privileges. He denies the natu- 
ral difference of the Sudra ; the poorest man of the 
vilest race may become one with Buddha. Hence, 
though he belongs to no priestly family, all his func- 
tions are more essentially those of a priest than the 
Brahmin's can be. He claims no civil distinction ; he 
is to be reverenced simply as offering up prayers for 
the peace and prosperity of all other people. He 
must abstain from much speech. In silence he may 
best hope to know the Unseen Intelligence. This is 
one aspect of the doctrine, and surely a very inter- 
esting one. 

II. But if the Buddhist sage asks himself, " What 
is it that I am contemplating : I cannot see it, or hear 
it, or handle it ; I dare not conceive it ; it is altogether 
inconceivable, and yet I know of it only by this mind 
of mine " : he is likely to find himself in a strange 
perplexity. Or, if he puts the case thus to himself : 
" The end I propose to myself is to become absorbed, 
lost, that is to say, nothing. Can it be Something which 



96 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

is to work this result ? Can it be Something I am con- 
templating ? " He must say at length, " No, it is Noth- 
ing. Nothing must be the ground of my life, of my 
being, — of the being of all the things I see ! " Here 
is Atheism ; a deep, hopeless void, yet touching on 
the borders of that doctrine which implied real belief 
in a living Divinity. 

The transition to such Atheism is, no doubt, possible 
in the Brahminical doctrine ; but here it is much easier. 
For the existence of a continuous caste preserves the 
tradition of a Divinity, invests it with a reality in some 
sense independent of the mind of the beholder. Here 
all rests upon that mind. The light seems to be pro- 
jected from the eye ; now it may be a bright sun in 
the heaven ; now it may shrink into a speck ; now it 
may vanish altogether. Yet we should draw a wrong 
inference from the incapacity of the Buddhist in this 
state of mind to give any form to his belief, if we said 
that it is wanting. He may even declare in honesty, 
" I see nothing," and the words being the utterance of 
despair, not of triumph or satisfaction, may themselves 
contain a sure witness, even to himself, that there is 
that which no words or thoughts of his can com- 
prehend ; an eternal absolute ground of all words and 
thoughts. 

III. And soon the Buddhist discovers an escape 
from this void of nothingness. He began with looking 
upon the One Intelligence as aione real ; all outward 
nature he discarded, as merely apparent. But the 
visible world claims its rights ; he cannot disown it ; 
he must, in some way or other, take it into his system. 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 97 

The Intelligence therefore, the pure Buddha, must 
have a partner of his throne. It is Dharma ; the prin- 
ciple of Matter ; that out of which all things are formed. 
But these two powers, Intelligence and Matter, seem 
essentially opposite ; if they are coworkers how can 
they be reconciled ? There must be another power, 
Sanga, the mediating influence, which binds the in- 
forming mind to the dead formless thing upon which it 
works. This is nearly the explanation which a Buddh- 
ist priest gave to the English resident at Nepaul of a 
subject which has occasioned much controversy. It is 
borne out by the symbols in the Buddhist temples. 
They seem contrived to express the idea of some 
active, productive power; of some passive, merely 
receptive power ; again, of something which is the 
joint result of both. If we compare the Buddhist 
Triad with the Hindoo Triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and 
Siva, the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, we are struck 
rather by their difference than their resemblance. The 
powers of preservation and destruction are militant 
powers ; each is continually invading the kingdom of 
the other : Brahma is looked upon as the common 
origin of both. Here the Intelligent Power is con- 
sidered as balancing, or sustaining, the Passive, Mate- 
rial Power ; and a third as necessary to their fellow- 
ship. The latter idea is, I think, by far the deeper, 
and more suggestive ; but then it is abstract rather 
than personal ; more of a philosophical speculation ; 
less of a practical belief. And it leads very directly 
to the next side of Buddhism, — what is called its Pan- 
theistic side. 



98 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

IV. Beginning with the notion that the Intelligence 
is entirely separated from the world, — that He is One, 
and it multiform, — the Buddhist may arrive, by a series 
of easy steps, at a conclusion which would seem most 
opposed to this, that the Intelligence is essentially one 
with the world : in fact, that it can only be considered 
as the informing life or soul of the world. As in the 
case of Brahminism, it may be rightly said that this 
doctrine was latent in the Buddhist from the first : in 
other words, that the moment he began to think upon 
Nature with no other data than the belief which he 
possessed, he must inevitably terminate in this scheme. 
But it should be said, at the same time, that he has 
struggled earnestly, even heroically, with this tendency ; 
that his effort to contemplate the pure Essence indi- 
cates a genuine desire to see something above the 
world, not merely dwelling in it and actuating it. 
However true then it may be that Buddhism often 
becomes a mere notion of a God diffused through all 
things, I cannot believe that this is its characteristic 
principle. To ascertain what that is, we must examine 
the next allegation respecting it, that it is especially the 
deification of human saints or heroes. 

V. We can scarcely speak of this as a phase of 
Buddhism. Everywhere you will find certain human 
beings called Buddhas. You will find Europeans ask- 
ing such questions as these, When was Buddha born ? 
How many Buddhas are there ? And those who are 
asked seem not astonished at the inconsistency of 
the two inquiries, or of either with that idea of a pure 
essential Intelligence, sometimes the fixed only reality, 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 99 

sometimes so divested of all qualities as to become 
nothing, sometimes diffused through all things. If you 
consider the starting point of the doctrine, you will see 
that the departure from it, which is involved in this 
notion of human Buddhas, is far less than it seems. 
The abstracted man was to become one with the 
Divinity. In the mind of the Hindoo a whole caste is 
marked out for that glory. But a whole caste evi- 
dently does not attain it ; there must be immeasurable 
differences of taste, earnestness, wisdom, in the priests 
of one generation, still more in those of successive 
generations. So it comes to pass, that there is much 
feeling of a divine character diffused through a great 
many ; not so much belief of actual divinity in particu- 
lar individuals. Here, on the contrary, there is no 
check to the conviction that a man has risen to the 
state of Godhead, — may be a God. In proportion as 
the Infinite Object fades into obscurity, or waxes fear- 
ful, the vision is more cherished of his appearance in 
some man, who in this or that period confers blessings 
on some particular country ; traverses different coun- 
tries ; now mounts into the regions where Indra the 
Lord of the Elements dwells, — now descends to earth, 
like Vishnu ; (for these powers have passed from the 
Hindoo into the Buddhist legends ;) and leaves here 
and there, in some mountain or valley, footmarks 
which may be noted, and become the symbols of his 
continual presence. For as he has moved through 
space, passing rapidly from one portion of the globe to 
another, so does he live through different periods of 
time, the same principle inhabiting various forms : the 



100 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

same Buddha, though there may have been a number 
of Buddhas, — though they may appear even now. 

VI. And now we can understand how idolatry, the 
worship of different out#ard natural things, may be 
attributed to this Theistic, Atheistic, Pantheistic, Human 
Doctrine. Through all nature, above and beneath, 
Buddha has journeyed ; everywhere he has left his 
footmarks ; everywhere we may find tokens of him. 
Sun, moon, and stars, all things on this earth, may 
speak of him. Or we may think of him as the fixed 
Immovable Past, as the Actual Present, as the dim 
Future of fears and hopes. But these sensible objects 
are too distant and vague ; these Past, and Present, and 
Future, too abstract. And we want to feel that we are 
not contemplating them in themselves, or for their own 
sakes, but the living, quickening Intelligence which 
has stamped its form upon them. They must be 
changed into symbols ; in that character we must 
approach them and revere them. They must assume 
shapes which are given to them by the kindred Intelli- 
gence in ourselves. 

Oftentimes these shapes will be animal ; for how 
ought we to think of the creatures around us, with 
those half human faculties and affections which we 
discover in them ; with the ferocity and cunning which 
are surely not peculiar to them ? Must not they be 
inhabited by a human spirit in some degraded, fallen 
condition ? Are they not wandering about as signs to 
us of what we may become ; of that state to which, by 
cultivating the lower and baser qualities of our nature, 
we may reduce ourselves ? So reasons the Buddhist ; 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 101 

he reveres and fears the animals as meaner forms of 
that Intellect, of which he sees the highest form in the 
glorified man, the Buddha. 

VII. I have not yet spoken of Buddhism as a social 
system. I described its ministers as forming an order 
of devotees, so distinguished from a caste of priests. 
It is necessary to speak thus of them, for we must not 
suppose, because they have no hereditary vocation, that 
they take their office at hazard, or that they have no 
communion with each other. We have a very accu- 
rate description of the ceremonies which are observed 
in some countries at their consecration, of the ques- 
tions which are asked to ascertain that they have no 
bodily or mental disqualification for the task. Such 
ceremonies, though they may vary in their forms, 
exist wherever Buddhism exists. In Thibet, which 
must be regarded as the centre and proper home of 
the religion, the priests are called Lamas; it is they 
who decide who the Lama, the true high-priest of the 
universe, at any given time is. I say they decide who 
he is ; for they could never allow that the faculty of 
choosing the chief Lama resides in them. In some 
person or other the spirit of Buddha dwells ; he is 
meant to be the head of the universe ; to him all owe 
homage. This Lama, therefore, never dies ; he is lost 
sight of in one form, reappears in another. The body 
of some old man who has had this honor loses its 
breath, is laid in the tomb. The Lama has passed 
into some infant, who is brought up in a convent with 
special care, preserved from sensual influences, taught 
from the cradle to look upon himself as the shrine of 



102 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the Divinity, and to receive the homage of rajahs, na- 
tions, even of the Celestial Empire ; nay, even of 
European monarchs. Some of you may remember to 
have read of a solemn embassy sent by the English 
government at Calcutta, in the days of Warren Has- 
tings, to the court of the Lama. A very affecting letter 
had been addressed by him to the English authorities 
in India, asking their help in checking quarrels between 
certain native sovereigns, an object, he said, which he 
sought diligently in prayers by day and night. An old 
man was the author of this letter ; before Mr. Turner, 
the English envoy, arrived, he had left the world ; and 
a child of eighteen months was acknowledged as his 
successor. It reigned by no hereditary right ; but the 
other Lamas presented him with unquestioning faith as 
the representative of the Perfect Intelligence through 
whom it would most surely utter itself. 

If we now try to sum up the evidence which we 
have gathered from different indications respecting 
Buddhism, I do not know that we can do it better than 
in the words of Mr. Hodgson, the resident at Nepaul, 
to whom I have already referred. " The one infallible 
diagnostic of Buddhism," he says, with an emphasis 
and decision which were the result of patient inquiries, 
conducted during many years, " is a belief in the infi- 
nite capacity of the human intellect." This is the con- 
clusion to which all our inquiries into the system have 
conducted us. The idea of an Adi Buddha, or Abso- 
lute Eternal Intelligence, is there, but it is hidden ; it 
gradually evaporates. The possibility of utter Atheism 
is there ; but the heart flies in dismay from it. The 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, 103 

vision of a Unity resulting from the reconciliation of op- 
posites is there ; but it either passes into a mere theory, 
or seeks for images to express it, which make it material. 
The conception of an intelligent soul in nature is 
there ; but it quickly resolves itself into a recognition 
of all nature as symbolizing human deeds and attri- 
butes. Lastly, the idea of deified men is there ; but 
this loses itself in another, that there is in man, in hu- 
manity, a certain Divine Intelligence, which at differ- 
ent times, and in different places, manifests itself more 
or less completely, and which must have some one 
central manifestation. The human intellect is first felt 
to be the perfect organ of worship ; finally its one 
object. This is Buddhism ; this is the conviction 
which, with more or less of confusion, is working in 
the hearts of three hundred millions of people on this 
globe of ours. 

I greatly desire to ask this doctrine, what testimony 
it bears for or against that hypothesis which it is the 
purpose of these Lectures to examine ; the hypothesis, 
I mean, that the divine portion of the faith of different 
nations signifies nothing ; that it is only an attempt to 
explain the phenomena of the universe ; that there is 
no need of a Revelation to man, because in himself, in 
his own heart, there is a sufficient revelation of all the 
truths he wants to know ; that we may safely leave 
this to work itself out as it can in the different religious 
systems, without pretending to inculcate notions of our 
own, which, perhaps, are only a little better than those 
we should displace. But I believe we shall be in a 
fairer condition to meet these questions, when we have 



104 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

considered the circumstances of a country in which 
Buddhism does not exist alone ; in which it is coun- 
teracted, and yet, I think, also illustrated, by the 
presence of systems older, in that country at least, 
than itself. 

Numerous as are the puzzles which the history and 
actual condition of China may present to European in- 
quirers, — even to those few who are acquainted with 
its language, and have had opportunities of closely ob- 
serving it, — I do not think that there is much differ- 
ence of opinion respecting its main and distinguishing 
characteristic. Its learned men, we are told by the 
most respectable authorities, say, without exception, 
" A principle of Order is that which we discover and 
reverence in the world " : and every act of their lives, 
the construction of their society, their art, their most 
minute ceremonies, bear out the assertion. If you hear 
their choicest phrases reported to you, or look at the 
works they have produced, or remember the duration 
of their empire, or think how many shocks from with- 
out it has withstood, or even read one of their singular 
state papers, you can scarcely avoid saying within 
yourself: Here is a people which, successfully or un- 
successfully, is striving to be orderly, which for gener- 
ations has been carrying on this struggle, which hates 
every thing that interferes with its success, would 
gladly obtain it by any sacrifice. Hence the preserva- 
tion of historical records in their driest form has been 
as important a purpose in their eyes as it has been an 
indifferent or an impossible one to the Hindoo. Hence, 
from first to last, we discover among them precisely 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 105 

the opposite view of social life to that which we have 
noticed in the conception of the Buddhist Lama. The 
Chinese does not first ask where Spiritual Intelligence 
dwells, and then confess that to this he must submit. 
But he starts with the belief in Government or Society ; 
and then demands that all study and intelligence should 
be applied to the preservation of it. The emperor ie 
the datum or postulate from which the speculations of 
philosophers, as well as the arrangements of society, 
begin. He is put into the position which he holds 
that he may be the spring and soul of order to the 
commonwealth. How he maybe so he is to inquire 
veiy diligently. All the functionaries of government 
are to be chosen according to their fitness to preserve 
that order, according to their knowledge of the maxims 
upon which it rests. To prevent any infractions of it 
by themselves, or those over whom they rule, is to be 
their incessant study. Instruction therefore, it would 
seem, has been from the earliest period a primary con- 
dition of all civil duties and employments. The Chi- 
nese have not anticipated me West more in other 
machinery than in that of education, and in the impor- 
tance which they have attached to it. Schools, great 
and little, especially for the instruction of those who 
shall have any offices in the state, were the great dis- 
tinction of those dynasties, which we should call in the 
history of any other people — here the name would 
be strikingly inapplicable — the heroic period of the 
empire. Because they fell into decay, and the fabric 
of social order with them, it was necessary that a re- 
former should appear. 



106 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

A Confucius appeared, not to introduce new maxims, 
but to revive the old, — to explain what he saw to be 
the conditions and first principles of Chinese govern- 
ment, and to embody them in books. These books 
have been for two thousand years the school-books of 
China: the maxims of society and practical conduct 
possessing an authority higher than any decrees, be- 
cause they explain that which must make decrees sta- 
ble, and procure obedience to them. The education of 
Confucius was one in state affairs. He was strictly a 
government functionary. He was disgusted with the 
confusion and disorder which he found in all depart- 
ments of the state, and he retired to meditate in secret 
the grounds upon which a reformation must be under- 
taken. He did not trust solely to his own reflection, 
or to Chinese antiquity. There was an old man, La- 
outsee, who spoke much of the Divine Reason which 
dwelt within each man, of its being the first object of 
every man to cultivate this, and to bring all his facul- 
' ties of body and mind under its rule. This he seems 
to have set up as the rriaxim of life, in opposition to 
the political notions of it, which prevailed among his 
countrymen generally. To his words Confucius lis- 
tened respectfully ; though far from admitting his doc- 
trine, he turned it to account by subordinating it to his 
own. He taught also that a man must cultivate this 
reason in himself, — must try to arrive at self-govern- 
ment, even at perfect self-government ; but all for 
social ends and purposes, all that he might be better 
able to contribute towards the rational administration 
of the state, towards the preservation of public order. 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 107 

But where lay the root of this order ? Its first ground 
Confucius, still professing only to be an interpreter of 
old and admitted doctrines, said, must lie in actual re- 
lationships ; the family must sustain the state. The 
authority of the father must be the root of all other 
authority. The emperor must be regarded, must re- 
gard himself, as the common father. He was set to 
keep his people in order, and upon this principle he 
must order himself. These were not mere words. 
They actually express that which has been the binding 
principle of Chinese society, from generation to gener- 
ation. Jesuit missionaries, Protestant missionaries, 
English travellers, French philosophical admirers of 
Confucius, have all alike confessed it. The maxims of 
Confucius are faithful results of the observations of a 
man honestly desirous to make use of the experience 
that is given him for a moral purpose ; they may gen- 
erally be read with interest, often with admiration, as 
hints for conduct, — even as helps to internal self-dis- 
cipline. But they would be feeble and unmeaning, 
and could scarcely have exercised any great influence 
on the mind of a nation, if they had not rested upon 
the recognition of a real and eternal principle of order, 
lying far deeper than all Chinese formalities, or than 
the formalities in the mind of Confucius himself. 
Fatherly authority was his ultimate principle. Practi- 
cally, he went not a step beyond it. What he heard of 
divine, unseen, mysterious powers above man, or above 
nature, or even in man and in nature, of some thing or 
person beyond the earthly emperor, or the earthly 
father, — he by no means denied. Whatever faith his 



108 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

countrymen had respecting the invisible world, he 
would have wished to confirm. But he did not see his 
way in such inquiries ; he could not trace the actual 
connection between them and practical life. And the 
sincerity of his mind revolted against the notion of 
merely using them as artifices to keep up respect for 
human institutions. On this ground he has, I think, 
been too hastily condemned as an atheistical philoso- 
pher. I cannot feel any desire to make good such a 
charge. It is a pleasanter, and also a truer course, 
to admit that his confession of ignorance may have 
been a genuine one ; and may even have implied that 
he had deeper thoughts than he knew how to ex- 
press. We may be sure that what there was weak 
and maimed in his scheme will discover itself in the 
course of history, and that this discovery will be far 
more valuable than any rash conclusions of ours re- 
specting it. 

Not many centuries after this reform, a Chinese 
emperor became aware that there was some blank in 
the doctrine of Confucius ; a blank which was not filled 
up by turning him into a god, and raising temples to 
him. Side by side with the Confucian or state wor- 
ship, dwelt the Taou sect, the disciples of that old phi- 
losopher with whom Confucius had conversed, men 
who still maintained that the reason was something 
divine and mysterious in each person and would lead 
him into inward contemplation, not make him the handy 
instrument in a state machinery. But these people 
had little faith, except in themselves. The effect of 
their mysterious knowledge upon others seemed chiefly 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 109 

exhibited in charms and incantations and magic arts, 
which interfered with the good order of the state, 
rather than promoted it. Something else was wanted. 
The emperor heard of a great teacher and prophet 
somewhere in India. In spite of the remonstrances of 
wise men, who showed him how grievously he was de- 
parting from Chinese maxims in preferring foreign to 
native culture, the Buddhist faith was imported into the 
empire. A religion resting upon communion with the 
unseen world, in all its outward and many of its in- 
ward characteristics the direct opposite of the Con- 
fucian system, gained footing on the soil which that 
system ruled. The result was what might have been 
expected. The new faith took hold of popular sympa- 
thy and has retained that sympathy to the present day. 
It was and is despised by the great mandarins, by the 
functionaries of government, by the adorers of social 
order. But it is more than tolerated by the govern- 
ment as such ; it is recognized as deserving of respect, 
even of homage. Though the emperor cannot allow 
the Lama to interfere with his own supreme rule, and 
has procured the appointment of a deputy Lama who 
shall be really the head of the Buddhist society in his 
dominions, and his subject, he yet sends embassies to 
the high-priest in Thibet, and asks his intercessions for 
China. Evidently Buddhism is felt, even by the disci- 
ples of Confucius, to be an element of society in China 
which cannot be dispensed with, and for which their 
own system, much as they may prefer it, offers no 
substitute. 

I have said, that in most of its inward, as well as 



110 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

outward characteristics, the Buddhist and the Confu- 
cian doctrine are opposed. I used this language, be- 
cause it is evident that in one respect they are not 
opposed. Different as are the functions which are 
assigned to the* intellect of man in the three Chinese 
systems, that intellect is still an object of profound ven- 
eration to all. Wisdom is viewed as wholly social and 
experimental in the first, internal and mystical in the 
second, strangely mixed with the idea of what is super- 
human and eternal in the third. Had it been other- 
wise, had there been nothing common in these faiths, 
it is scarcely possible to conceive of them dwelling to- 
gether in such an empire ; or to suppose that one should 
at all supply the gaps in the other. 

And which, then, of these three faiths, shall we say 
can be described by that comprehensive formula, " a 
mere attempt to explain the phenomena of the uni- 
verse " ? All three do attempt that, doubtless, — Buddh- 
ism, especially. But, does the faith of the Buddhist 
consist in this ? Is it this which in his inmost heart he 
wants to know ? Every inquiry we have made has 
led us to the opposite conclusion. He is obliged to 
question the universe, because he does not know what 
else he should question. He has questioned it, and to 
every problem which disturbs him it has returned a 
more confused answer. He has asked, what that is 
within him which is higher than it, what that is which 
seeks a knowledge which it cannot give ? He is sure 
that he is above the world, — that it was never meant 
to be his master, — that the spirit in him must have its. 
ground elsewhere. But where ? What is this ground ? 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. Ill 

Is it any thing ? Is it nothing ? Who will tell him ? 
That which has asked the question cannot give the 
answer. With deepest solicitude, he cries, — " Do 
Thou, of whom I see the footmarks in natural things, 
but most of all in human s beings, in those who have 
thoughts, and reasons, and wills, — in those who feel 
that these are not nteant to be the servants of their sen- 
ses, or of the things with which their senses deal, — do 
Thou tell me who Thou art, and how I may draw nigh 
to Thee. Tell me what Thou hast to do with man, for 
something Thou must have. Tell me if there be a man, 
and where he is, in whom I may behold Thee ; One 
who is not here to-day, and gone to-morrow ; but who, 
amidst all changes of times, the disappearance of gen- 
erations, lives on. Tell me if there be indeed a King 
and High-Priest of the universe, — a man actually 
Divine. And this, too, I need to know : What that 
Light is which dwells in me ; whether it is self-derived, 
or, as my inward heart tells me, derived from Thee. 
Whether there be any Spirit coming forth from Thee 
to dwell in men, and bind them together, — to make 
them gentle, and gracious, and wise, — to be the com- 
mon life of all, and still the life of each. And if these 
things be so, tell me how these things can be recon- 
ciled, as my reason has whispered that they can be, 
though as yet I see not how, with that Unity, — the 
essential condition of Thy Being, — that which divides 
Thee from ajl the multitude of things and persons with 
whom in this world we converse." I say that Buddh- 
ism, rightly interpreted, is a prayer of this kind, — an 
earnest prayer, consciously or unconsciously uttered by 



112 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

three hundred millions of people. And yet we are told 
that it is honoring the faith of these people, showing ten- 
derness and respect for them to believe that there is not 
any Revelation, save that which man procures for him- 
self. In other words, that this prayer never has been, 
never can be, answered. Only if we have really 
brought ourselves to this contempt for the thoughts of 
so many human beings, can we patiently think of this 
faith working out, as the phrase is, its own results. It 
has been working out its results for all these thousands 
of years, — and what have they been? The worship 
of the intellect has not caused the intellect to grow, — 
not even to grow to an ordinary human or earthly stat- 
ure ; I say nothing of that Divine stature which it feels 
that it may reach. The priest of Buddha, of the In- 
telligence, is rarely an intelligent man. That mighty 
portion of the globe over which Buddhism rules is near- 
ly the most ignorant portion of it. And yet in it lie 
the seeds of all highest, noblest culture, if only we can 
really address ourselves to that which is within the 
hearts of those who hold this faith, if we can only tell 
them that which they crave to know. That it is a vain 
and cruel thing merely to carry our own notions among 
them, — our notions upon any subject, divine, human, 
earthly, — I admit readily. If we do not know that 
which will solve their riddle, — if we cannot tell them, 
Here is that which will turn doubt and confusion into 
clearness ; here is that which is not our notiqp, but which 
is come from God to confound our notions, to con- 
found o^ir pride ; and which is meant, not for us, but 
for mankind : for mercy's sake, let us be silent, — the 
Buddhists are better as they are. 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 113 

So also of the Confucian scheme. That cannot be 
charged with want of practical results. Yet that some- 
thing is wanting, China itself has confessed. Can it be 
supplied from within ? When we fancy it, I think we 
commit a great injustice. Mr. Medhurst, the author 
of an interesting book on China, the result of his own 
observations, expresses his wonder, and even indigna- 
tion, that Confucius, having dwelt so beautifully on the 
rights and duties of a father, should not have carried 
up his thoughts to the Great Father of all. I confess 
that I feel quite unable to adopt this language. It 
seems to me evidence of Confucius being a sincere 
man, that he did not allow himself to use mere figures 
of rhetoric upon this subject, for such in his lips they 
would have been. If, having spoken of one holding an 
actual relation under the name of Father, he had after- 
wards used that word as a synonyme for a Creator or 
for an unknown Being, the pleasure which such ex- 
pressions might have caused us would have been dear- 
ly purchased by the loss of reality in the mind of him. 
who resorted to them. If you can tell the Chinese 
that this is an actual relation, that it has been proved to 
be so, that our human relation is the image of it, that 
the reality of one gives reality to the other, that the 
honor paid to relationships is not incompatible with 
that seemingly abstract, unsocial, unreal view of the 
Reason of which the Taou sect has been the champion, 
and that the Buddhist spiritualism is not an element 
of new confusion, but of reconciliation, — you will 
indeed discover to him that deepest foundation of order 
which he is looking for, — you will show him that way 



114 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

from the visible to the Invisible which he has never yet 
discovered. But any teaching short of this, that hard 
and formal, and yet withal practical and serious mind 
of his, will repel. You will find that you have not 
learnt the spell which can break the heavy yoke of 
custom from off his neck, and change him from the 
most perfect of living machines into a living Man. 



LECTURE IV. 

The Old Persian Faith and its Destruction. The 
Egyptian. The Greek. The Roman. The Gothic. 
General Conclusion. 

The Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Buddhist, are 
the great prevailing faiths of the world. A person 
indeed who should insist upon reducing all the religious 
thoughts and convictions he met with in different places 
under one of these three heads, would exhibit great 
practical ignorance ; for the feelings and apprehen- 
sions which belong to actual human beings will not bear 
to be so treated. A man will not really be intelligible to 
you, if, instead of listening to him and sympathizing 
with him, you determine to classify him. But it is 
true, that one who has patiently studied and livingly 
realized the characteristics of these wide-spread be- 
liefs, will not be hopelessly puzzled by the notions of 
men in any part of the globe, civilized or savage. 
There are no other existing forms of religious thought 
sufficiently distinct from these to deserve a separate 
examination in such a course of Lectures as this ; none 
which have not grown out of them, or have not been 
rapidly absorbed into them. And it is of existing sys- 
tems that I wished first and chiefly to speak, because 



116 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

for the practical object I proposed to myself, and which 
Boyle desired we should keep in sight, these must be 
the most important. I could not, however, do proper 
justice to the subject, if, before I enter upon the second 
division of it, — the consideration of the way in which 
Christianity is related to different religions, — I did not 
touch upon what may be called the defunct systems, 
those which belong to history, and which have yielded 
to the might either of the Crescent or the Cross. The 
word " defunct," we shall soon find, is only in one 
sense applicable to them ; they had that in them which 
is not dead, and cannot die ; that which is exerting an 
influence upon the mind and education of Christendom 
at the present day. Still, as systems, they belong to 
the past ; they will therefore supply a new kind of test 
for trying the maxims respecting the worthlessness and 
transitoriness of what is merely theological, which I 
have been examining in former Lectures. For the 
reason I have given they ought not to be treated in the 
same detail as those which have occupied us hitherto : 
indeed, I do not think we should gain so much by con- 
sidering them in detail, as by glancing at them side by 
side ; so that the principles which distinguish them, 
and those wherein they are alike, may be more readily 
discerned. I shall therefore endeavor to compress what 
I have to say of them into a single Lecture. 

I. The old Persian religion is the first which offers 
itself to our notice, as standing in close relation, both 
outwardly and inwardly, to the Hindoo. The Zenda- 
vesta, the religious book in which this faith is profess- 
edly set forth, cannot be appealed to as a very certain 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 117 

authority respecting it ; what we possess is confessedly 
a compilation from earlier sources ; and though critics 
think that they can detect older fragments in the midst 
of it, there is great difficulty in separating them from 
the mass, or in determining the time when it was put 
together. The age and history of the man who is 
spoken of as the great prophet of this faith, Zerdusht 
or Zoroaster, are equally obscure. It has even been 
questioned whether such a man ever existed, — wheth- 
er he does not merely represent a divine principle, 
or a stage in a nation's history. It might seem, then, 
as if this doctrine, of which we have such vague 
records, must have exercised but a slight influence ; at 
all events, that its essential character cannot be ascer- 
tained. Both conclusions would be erroneous. What- 
ever authority the Zendavesta may have, whatever 
kind of person Zoroaster may have been, the Persian 
faith has been bound up with the life of a great portion 
of Asia, and has left as strong evidences as any both 
of its nature and of its power over the minds of men, 
even in generations far removed from each other. 

The readers of Gibbon will remember a splendid 
passage of his history describing a great Asiatic revo- 
lution which took place in the third century after Christ. 
The old Persian empire was then ruled by the Par- 
thians. Their dynasty had lasted for several centuries ; 
it had been set up after the Greek armies had con- 
quered Asia ; after they had established their own 
habits and civilization in the midst of it. Their wor- 
ship the Parthians to a considerable extent adopted ; 
the old faith of the Persians they crushed. At the 



118 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

period I speak of it was found that this faith had lain 
hidden under the soil, but had never been destroyed. 
The Magi came forth and proclaimed that which they 
affirmed to be the original teaching of Zoroaster. The 
innovations of five centuries were swept away ; a 
dynasty which the Persians recognized as the continu- 
ation of the old kingdom of Cyrus was established, and 
the nation's old belief was the foundation upon which 
it rested. This power became the great Eastern an- 
tagonist of Rome : at a later period, it had nearly 
wrested the empire of Asia from Constantinople : it 
sunk at last under the irresistible strength of the Ma- 
hometan armies. For a time, those whom the Ma- 
hometans called fire-worshippers struggled hard : at 
length they vanished into an insignificant sect ; Persia 
acknowledged the Prophet of Arabia as its one divine 
teacher. 

But what was the faith which governed the old 
Persian while he ruled the world, — which dwelt so 
deeply in the heart of a people that it could revive 
after a lapse of centuries, — which perished all but 
utterly-at last? We have seen that the Brahm of the 
Hindoo, the Buddha of that mighty sect which arose 
out of Hindooism, is especially the Intelligent Being, 
He in whom light dwells, and by communication with 
whom men become enlightened. Observe how natu- 
rally, how inevitably, one uses this word Light for In- 
telligence. We feel instinctively that it is much the 
better word of the two ; that one is hard and abstract, 
the other living and real. So men have felt in all 
countries and ages. Their bodily eye distinguished 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 119 

one thing from another, — could exert itself in the day, 
was useless in darkness. They had as certainly some- 
thing within them which could discern a sense in words, 
a meaning in things. This surely was an eye too. 
There was no better way of speaking about it : and 
there must be some light answering to this eye, older 
than it, otherwise it could not be. They discovered, 
too surely also, that there was a state in which this eye 
saw nothing, a state of darkness. If we keep these 
very simple thoughts in our minds (I say, keep them 
in your minds, for they are there already : we are 
obliged to make use of this language, — it belongs to 
us all, to prince and peasant alike) ; and if we recol- 
lect that what we are apt to overlook as too simple, is 
oftentimes just the most important thing of all, — the 
key which unlocks a multitude of treasure-houses, — 
we shall be able to enter into the belief of different 
people, and to trace the transition from one to another 
far more easily. The conviction which we have found 
dwelling so strongly in the minds of Brahmin and 
Buddhist, though taking different forms, was this, — 
" He who has the inward eye most opened must be the 
greatest man : he in whom it is quenched must be the 
lowest and most miserable man." And the puzzle 
which we saw tormenting them both, in different ways 
and different degrees, was this. But where is this 
light ? Is it only in the eye ? What then does the 
eye behold ? Is it not in the eye ? How then can I 
call that a light ? A very deep question indeed ; the 
answers to which, in every case, are full of practical 
significance. The Persia* solution was the most sim- 



120 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

pie of all. He felt that his whole life was precisely 
this debate between light and darkness. There must, 
he said, be Lords over this light and over this darkness. 
This had probably been his oldest and strongest con- 
viction. 

The nights in Persia are clear and beautiful. The 
stars were a language which spoke to peasant and 
priest alike of light coming out of darkness. On these 
the one will have meditated till he thought them powers 
and rulers of the world ; the other will have paid them 
actual homage. The Magians, the servants of the 
Light, will have devised a system of worship addressed 
to these. If Zerdusht or Zoroaster were a real man, 
he probably arose at a time when this worship had be- 
come very general, and when the mind of the people 
had become much debased by it. To some man, or 
some men, it was given to perceive that the ministers 
of light had become ministers of darkness. Those 
things which symbolized a Divine Light had been sub- 
stituted for it. He rose up as the witness for Ormuzd, 
the Lord of Light, to testify that light comes from him, 
and not from the outward, material things ; that whoso 
serves them is the servant of Ahriman, the Prince of 
Darkness. While Ahriman teaches his servants to 
bow down before visible things, Ormuzd communicates 
to men his living Word, (that is the meaning of Zenda- 
vesta,) speaks to their hearts, teaches them the laws 
of justice and order. The battle between Ormuzd and 
Ahriman will be long, but Ormuzd must triumph at 
last. The kingdom of light is mightier than the king- 
dom of darkness. This wa*the substance of the Per- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 121 

sian faith, to the revival of which, in its strength and 
simplicity, all that was vigorous in the Persian charac- 
ter and government seems to have been owing. There 
was the greatest difference between it and the Hindoo, 
— precisely this difference. The Hindoo thought of 
light and darkness as the opposition between cultiva- 
tion and ignorance, — between the Brahmin and the 
Sudra ; the Persian looked upon them as expressions 
for right and wrong. Far less refined and intellectual 
than the Indian, far less capable of mere speculation, 
he had a sense of practical, moral distinctions to which 
the other was almost a stranger, or, at least, which 
never presented themselves to him, nakedly and 
directly, as the foundation of all other distinctions. 
Hence a difference in their scheme of life. Right 
must be proclaimed by some one ; not merely recog- 
nized or perceived. The Persian, therefore, looked 
much more to an authority which should command 
men, or to a teacher who should impart wisdom, than 
merely to a thinker or devotee. He regarded the 
king, from whom the law and words of grace proceeded, 
with more reverence than the priest. There might be 
many conflicts between the two, at times they might 
work in harmony, but this was the abiding, characteris- 
tic Persian feeling. 

But there were two or three difficulties specially be- 
setting him who held this faith. The Persian felt that 
visible things were not to be adored. It was the wor- 
ship of Ahriman to set up them as the lords of men. 
Yet he had more need than the Hindoo to feel that the 
object he was worshipping was above himself, not 



122 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

merely in himself. He must speak of the Light as 
coming to him, not merely as proceeding from him. 
But if so, how shall he realize it ? Must not the light, 
or must not the fire, or must not the sun, be in some 
sense or other an object for him to fear and obey ? 
This thought would be always reappearing in the pop- 
ular mind, nay, in the mind of the teacher who most 
protested against it, when he was struggling with the 
tendency in himself and other men to set up their own 
thoughts as if the true Light was in them. To meet it 
the Magian devises a theory. These outward objects 
are but images or counterfeits of something within ; 
they are the productions of the king of darkness : the 
good and great beings who appear in the world come 
forth from the inner kingdom to subvert these. Start- 
ing from such a notion as this, it was easy to produce 
a universe of phantasies ; the simple and earnest mind 
of the Persian, struggling against them, and struggling 
in vain, would plunge into direct idolatry. Another 
awful question there was : Did this power of good 
originate the power of evil, or is each self-created ? 
Or whence do they come ? Some hidden being there 
must be, — some deeper ground than all that man 
could conceive. They tried to express it in some 
name, — they called this ground of all things, Time 
without Bounds. 

Under this last form the Persian faith came into con- 
tact with the Christian Church of the first ages. The 
influence of the Gospel over Persia was slight and par- 
tial ; but the preachers of it perceived a deep meaning 
in the Persian speculations. Gradually some appeared 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 123 

who thought the speculation beautiful, who cared little 
for the solution. These produced some of the darkest 
of the early heresies. When the Mussulman encoun- 
tered the Persian faith he felt no such temptation. " Is 
this your God, — this Time without bounds, this phan- 
tasy the Living Being ? It is impossible. No ! pre- 
tend what you will, you are worshippers of fire, or of 
the sun, or of the stars. With our swords we cut 
through your webs of sophistry, — through you? worlds 
seen and unseen, — your good and your evil principles. 
There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet. Yield 
to that belief, or perish ! " 

The victory was very complete ; such a one is 
hardly recorded in the annals of the world. But when 
it was effected there was found to be something imper- 
ishable in Persian faith and feelings which could change 
the characteristics of Mahometanism itself. To it we 
owe those stories of fairies and genii, which mix with 
our earliest impressions of Mahometanism. In a later 
time Persia became the home of the great Sofi schism, 
which has introduced a new Pantheistic element into 
the doctrine of the Koran. Under the Mahometan 
teaching, which in Turkey has certainly been favorable 
to veracity, the strong sense of moral right and wrong 
which distinguished the Old Persian has deserted him. 
He who was celebrated by Xenophon as above all men 
the speaker of truth, has become proverbial for lying. 

II. The history of Persia at a certain period becomes 
connected with that of Egypt. The connection is a 
religious one. The Persian king, Cambyses, seems to 
have been a fanatic, and to have carried on wars, if 



124 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

not for the propagation of his own faith, at least for 
the punishment of those who held what he thought a 
false one. The Egyptian priests were especial objects 
of his abhorrence. If we ask on what grounds, we 
shall be led into the consideration of another faith of 
the old world, which has left the most singular records 
of itself ; which at different periods of its existence is 
bound up with Jewish and with Greek history ; which 
was an^ object of profound interest to students two 
thousand years ago, and is scarcely of less interest to 
the students of our own century. 

One subject immediately suggests itself to most of us 
when we think of Egypt. I mean its hieroglyphics, or 
sacred symbolical writing. And as the deciphering of 
this writing has been the key to all modern discoveries 
respecting the details of the history of this people, so 
the mere fact itself that they did use such a character 
is, perhaps, the most helpful of all to the understanding 
of its principle. We have seen what a puzzle it was 
to the Persian to connect the outward things which he 
saw with those which were objects of his thought ; how 
continually there seemed to be some light very near to 
his mind and heart which was revealing itself to him ; 
how, while he realized this conviction, the outward 
sensible things which withdrew him from this light 
were regarded as dark and evil ; and yet how difficult 
he found it to express his thoughts about that inward 
light, except in terms which soon became confused 
with sensible images. The Egyptian never seems to 
have had this horror of visible things. He felt that 
something very sacred lay beneath them, and was 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 125 

expressed by them. To discover what this was, to 
read what was hidden in the objects of nature, was, in 
his apprehension, the function of the wise man. Then 
he was to translate back these perceptions of his into 
outward forms and images, that the vulgar might be 
able to profit by them so far as it was meant that they 
should. Hence, there grew up an order of priests in 
Egypt, as separate from the rest of society as the 
Brahmins. A caste system organized itself in the Af- 
rican, as in the Asiatic, nation. But the Egyptian 
priest was not an abstracted man in the same sense as 
the Hindoo ; he did not so much withdraw himself 
from the contemplation of outward things, as seek to 
extract a virtue and a meaning from them. His first 
thought of all seems to have been that there was a 
Being hidden from man, but who was making himself 
manifest in different forms and signs. His operations 
in nature, the power which is exerted over the earth, 
and the life which goes on within it, might, especially 
in a country of such unparalleled fertility as Egypt, 
present themselves as objects of wonder and witnesses 
of a Divine presence. But it would be impossible to 
think of these powers in the earth, without thinking of 
the animals which dwell upon it, of the different powers 
and qualities which they display, of their birth, and de- 
cay and renewal. These animals supply him with 
more distinct and definite symbols than the vague ex- 
panse of the heaven or earth. Different kinds of pow- 
er are more concentrated and expressed in them ; they 
can be far more easily exhibited in stone or in writing. 
Hence these became predominant objects of meditation 



126 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to the priests. The various characteristics of the God- 
head very soon become gods. Students of Egyptian 
monuments discover three stages in the worship, — 
three different cycles of gods. In the earliest cycle 
the idea of the Ammon, the hidden god, is the pre- 
dominant one ; and his manifestations are themselves 
rather in active energies, in vital operations, than in out- 
ward objects. The third cycle is the one most directly 
outward, hinting, however, at principles which in the 
first period were less perceived. As might be expected, 
different cities are found to have different classes of 
symbols ; those in Upper Egypt to be characteristical- 
ly diverse from those in the Lower ; though at some 
period an attempt must have been made to bring all 
into one system. 

Here, then, we seem to be in the idolatrous country, 
— the country of divided worship : that which teaches 
us what idolatry means ; how man loses sight of a cen- 
tre ; how every separate thing about him may become 
his master. And yet, throughout the whole of this 
idolatry there is a perpetual questioning of an unknown 
power to tell what this visible creation means. Each 
thing that is beheld is a riddle, an oppressive, tormenting 
riddle, of which some solution must be found. The 
Egyptian priest feels that the riddle is in the things. 
He does not put it into them, and it is not for him to 
do more than catch a stray hint of what each is de- 
noting. But there is some object, some centre. The 
Pyramids point up to heaven as if they would say, 
" We are in search of it, we would reach it if we 
could." 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 127 

Such a system as this, on whatever side he viewed 
it, would be very offensive to a Persian king, especially 
if he lived shortly after the revival of his own faith, 
and before it had undergone any of its later changes. 
The Egyptians would seem to him worshippers of those 
outward things, which he was taught to regard as in 
some sort the possessions of Ahriman. And all their 
mystical wisdom would look like miserable attempts to 
bring light out of darkness. It was far otherwise with 
the Greek. The inquiries and speculations of the 
Egyptian priests were listened to by him with attention 
and wonder. He thought they had a secret which he 
did not possess ; he eagerly, but often in vain, ques- 
tioned them to learn what it was. In later times, when 
a Greek kingdom had established itself in the heart of 
Egypt, under the Ptolemies, both Jews and Greeks met 
upon that soil, and the old Egyptian feeling, of a mys- 
terious meaning lying at the root of all things, exer- 
cised a remarkable influence over both. The influence 
was felt by the Christian Church which established 
itself afterwards there, and which consisted of both 
elements. It has left deep traces in the thoughts of 
men during all subsequent periods. But Christianity, 
which had a strong hold upon the Greek cities of Egypt, 
seems never to have penetrated into the heart of the 
country population. The symbolizing tendencies which 
it had inherited from the old faith led to divisions on 
most momentous points, which appeared to lose their 
momentousness in the violent party strifes and intellec- 
tual subtleties to which they gave rise. Egypt became 
sectarian and demoralized ; the Mahometan power 



128 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

established itself there. Various dynasties and various 
forms of Islam ism have possessed it at different times ; 
the arms which swept away subtleties and janglings 
were utterly unable to cultivate the mind of the Egyp- 
tian. All the European refinements and material wis- 
dom of its present ruler have not awakened one thought 
in the people's heart, or done aught but make their 
slavery more ignominious and hateful. If the Mem- 
non lyre is again to give forth any music, it must be 
touched by the rays from some sun which is not yet 
visible in that heaven. 

III. To understand the difference between the 
Egyptian and 4he Greek faith, it is not necessary to 
study a great many volumes, or to visit different lands : 
our own British Museum will bring the contrast before 
us in all its strength. If we pass from the hall of 
Egyptian antiquities into the room which contains the 
Elgin marbles, we feel at once that we are in another 
world. The oppression of huge animal forms, the per- 
plexity of grotesque devices, has passed away. You 
are in the midst of human forms, each individually 
natural and graceful, linked together in harmonious 
groups ; expressing perfect animal beauty, yet still 
more the dominion of human intelligence over the ani- 
mal. You perceive that the Greek is not mainly occu- 
pied with spelling out a meaning in the forms of nature : 
their symmetry and harmony present themselves to him 
as delightful and satisfying. He is not trying to find 
out the natural characters in which he shall utter his 
thoughts : he feels that he is able to write them in a 
character devised by themselves, upon nature. He 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 129 

can take the forms of the world and mould them into 
expressions of the spirit that is working in himself. 
The Brahm or Buddha of the East, the God of Intel- 
ligence, is with him. At Delphi, the centre of the 
world, he utters his oracles of wisdom, by which states 
and men are to rule themselves. But he is no mere 
formal, abstract Divinity : He is all Light like the Per- 
sian God ; you may see him in the sun ; but he himself 
is a beautiful human being, with his quiver and bow, 
destroying the creatures that offend the earth, or pun- 
ishing human wrongs ; with the lyre, at the sound of 
which cities spring up and men are brought into order 
and harmony. Apollo seems to be the central figure 
in Greek mythology, that around which the others 
have disposed themselves. The idea of Light and 
Wisdom, which is concentrated in him, is diffused 
in different forms, male and female, through the rest 
of the mythology, each having some particular locali- 
ty, and presenting some different aspect to the Greek 
mind. 

But it is felt that this bright, clear, human form can- 
not be the ground of all things. A Hindoo might have 
said that he was an emanation from the First Principle ; 
but a Greek, with his strong human feelings, at once 
refers him to a parent, and says that he must be the 
Son of Zeus, the Lord of All. And what is He, and 
where does He dwell ? On a high Thessalian hill, out 
of the sight of men. There his thunders are heard ; 
thence his decrees come forth. An awe surrounds his 
habitation, but he too very speedily becomes a clear, 
definite conception. He is seen in a human form, pres- 



130 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



ently figured in sculpture. Human acts and passions 
are ascribed to him. The thought of mere solitary, 
self-subsisting grandeur is intolerable to the Greek ; 
around him therefore must be a council of chiefs. And 
since the upper world seems his possession, since it is 
impossible to conceive of him otherwise than in the 
World of Light, the nether world, the dark world, must 
have its own ruler, and that other strange region, which 
seems neither to belong to the world above nor to the 
world below, the illimitable ocean, on which the Greek 
gazed with delight and childlike wonder, which was 
ready to swallow him up, and yet which owned his 
rule, which he could traverse with his ships, which 
gave him a sense of unbounded freedom and com- 
munion even while it shut him in and separated him 
from his fellows, — this too must have its Monarch. 

There was delight in forming these conceptions, in 
moulding them into actual shapes ; and yet the heart 
craved for^ something else, something that it could not 
thus conceive and mould. Dreams came to them of an 
earlier period, when another divinity, older than Zeus, 
had dominion, — Chronos, or Time, was his name. Of 
such a one Zoroaster had spoken, but his abstraction 
of time without limits is quickly moulded by the Greek 
into an outward form, — an old man with a scythe, 
who devours his children as soon as they are born. So 
quickly did these visions of a world above man, or of a 
world in the past, take their shape and coloring from 
the actual world, and from the mind of him who ob- 
served it. And other visions there were, which con- 
fessedly belonged to earth, though they began and 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 131 

ended with heaven. The Greek Hercules is the head 
of a whole class of human benefactors and heroes, 
who tilled and subdued the earth, drained marshes, 
destroyed beasts and oppressive men, one of whom 
also penetrated into the lower world, delivered the vic- 
tims of death, so proving his title to be a son of the 
god, and, ultimately, rising into fellowship with the 
gods. With these were mingled men who aspired 
rashly and presumptuously to that glory, — Titans, 
who strove to overcome the Lord of Heaven by pure 
strength, — one who was sentenced to perpetual thirst 
for seizing the divine nectar, — one whose name de- 
clares him to be the representative of wisdom and 
foresight, who opposed the brute strength of the Titans, 
but who, because he stole fire from heaven for the 
good of man, must be fastened to a rock, and be the 
prey of a vulture, till a predestined deliverer should 
come. 

All these conceptions could harmonize very well 
with that worship of Apollo which seems to have been 
characteristically the Greek worship. But at some 
time or other a mysterious divinity appeared, who 
possessed men with an inspiration which raised them 
into gods, or degraded them into brutes, — a power to 
be felt rather than beheld. The Greek imagination 
was able to give even this Deity a form and a name ; 
to invest him with ivy-leaves, and describe him as 
coming amid songs and shoutings from India. But 
the idea of such a power, so near to man, so deep and 
inward, could not forsake them. It uttered itself in 
poems, which were of a very different character from 



132 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the free songs of early times ; which spoke of man as 
carrying on a conflict with himself and with the world ; 
which spoke of a deep, unknown Fate, whereto even 
the gods must bow. This faith associated itself also 
with Mysteries, which imparted to the mind of the 
whole nation a sense of something too sacred for 
words to utter, or images to represent, and which 
must, nevertheless, lie at the root of human life and 
society. 

Meantime the feelings which these mysteries ^con- 
veyed to the popular mind were realized in another 
way by thoughtful men ; they began to say within 
themselves, The origin of the things we see, of our 
own lives, of human society, cannot be in those per- 
sons to whom the traditions of our ancestors have 
ascribed them. The authors, they said, of these tra- 
ditions were poets, who created our creators. But 
where is that which is not conceived, not created ? Is 
it in the things themselves, — in water, or earth, or 
air, or fire ? Is it in our own mind ? Is it in some 
principle which unites these together? These were 
the questions which the Greeks asked themselves, 
when they could be no longer content with the vision 
of a fair-haired Apollo, but must find out what that 
Light or Intelligence was of which his name testified. 
In pursuing such inquiries, some were willing to seek 
aid of those Egyptian priests who seemed to have dis- 
cerned the meaning of things, and not to have invented 
a meaning for them. Some wished to turn the stories 
of their childhood into mere abstract speculations ; 
some discarded them, and all belief together. The 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 133 

wisest of them labored to show the Greek youths 
that their conscience and reason demanded something 
which they did not create for themselves ; that all faith 
and reverence and worship, the words which they 
spoke, their own existence, their very doubts and ques- 
tionings, pointed to a deep, eternal ground, which could 
not be a visible phantom, nor a theory, nor an abstrac- 
tion, — which must be the Being. 

We may possibly persuade ourselves that with this 
record of human thoughts we have nothing to do. But 
with it is bound up the history of one of the most 
remarkable people that has ever existed upon the earth. 
Their inward history is necessary to interpret the out- 
ward one. From it we must learn why the Greeks 
were so mighty, and why they were so weak ; why 
their intellect asserted such a dominion over the great- 
est physical power, and why it could not be victorious 
over the animal nature in themselves ; why, when they 
were feeble, they seemed capable of ruling the world, 
and why, when they became its masters, they were 
broken in pieces. And this inquiry has not become an 
obsolete one even in reference to Greece itself: the 
last thirty years have given it new interest. The 
Greek mythology, after some desperate efforts to ally 
itself with philosophy, and in that shape to put itself 
forth as an antagonist to Christianity, sunk into insig- 
nificance ; the last school of purely Greek philosophy 
was closed in the reign of Justinian. But the habits 
and character which that mythology and philosophy 
embodied, exhibited themselves most remarkably in 
the history and controversies of the Christian Church, 



134 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

were preserved at Constantinople through the whole of 
the Middle Ages, penetrated into the West at the re- 
vival of letters, have survived on their own soil three 
centuries of Mahometan dominion, and must be ear- 
nestly studied by all who desire that the new Greek 
kingdom should not exhibit all the vices and none of 
the merits of the old Greek republics ; who desire that 
it should be, as it may be, an efficient bond between 
the European and the Asiatic, the Western and the 
Eastern World. 

IV. The faith which is -embodied in the acts and 
literature of the Romans is often supposed to be the 
same with that of the Greeks. But this opinion arises, 
I think, from the habit of comparing the systems to- 
gether, instead of seeking the main and central object 
in each. The majority of the Latin books which we 
read belong to a period after the Greeks had become 
the teachers of Rome, and after its own faith had in a 
great measure disappeared. Yet even from these, it is 
easy to perceive that Apollo, who, as the teacher of 
wisdom, the model of human beauty, the source of 
harmony, was the prominent Greek Divinity, never 
could have occupied any similar place in the Latin 
mind. In the* system of the Greeks the father of gods 
and men was of course the centre. He was so, I be- 
lieve, practically and vitally to the Roman. But he did 
not habitually think of Jupiter as seated on a mountain, 
as the lord of earth and air. Such notions might 
gradually develop themselves in his mind ; but, first 
of all, he believed there was One in the capitol of his 
own city ; a presence there from which all law and 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 135 

government, the right of the father, the authority of 
the consul, proceeded. These different conceptions — 
of a Being dwelling in the centre of the world, and 
uttering oracles of wisdom to guide the thoughts and 
understandings of men, — of one dwelling in the cen- 
tre of the city, and issuing words of authority and law 
to bind citizens together, to restrain, mould, organize 
societies — seem to mark the difference between the 
characters and doings of the two nations ; each won- 
derfully asserting the power of man over natural things, 
and ascribing this power to his connection with a divine 
ruler, or teacher, or inspirer : but the one using nature 
to set forth man's thoughts, the other making it the 
servant of his purposes ; the first creating statues, the 
other roads and aqueducts ; both aiming at unity, but 
the one always ready to sacrifice actual unity to an 
ideal, the other considering every thing subordinate to 
the object of keeping men practically at one ; each 
alike disturbed by the oppositions of self-will and indi- 
vidual interest; but these concealing themselves, in 
the Greek, under the pretence of defending some Prin- 
ciple, in the Roman, under the ambition of upholding 
the rights of some Order. 

This distinction is apparent in every part of the Ro- 
man faith. A God who defines and preserves boun- 
daries is more sacred in his eyes than the teacher of the 
divinest art. If he honors any God as a teacher it is 
Mercury, because he imparts the gift of eloquence, by 
which bodies of men are swayed, — by which armies 
are moved or regulated. This result, and not the cul- 
tivation of any faculty for its own sake, is what he 



136 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

seeks. The god of war, who is often utterly contempt- 
ible in the Greek legends, is his great patron and de- 
fender. The first king in old Roman heroic tradi- 
tions is his son, though it is not as a conqueror, but as 
the organizer of an infant community, that those tradi- 
tions present him to us. War, in the Roman concep- 
tion of it, is not an exhibition of individual prowess, 
however such prowess may be called forth by it : but 
a means of subduing restless, striving atoms into order. 
It is, then, not at all inconsistent with his reverence for 
Mars, that a feeling of the sanctity of domestic ties 
should especially belong to his faith. Virgil, who, 
though as a writer he may have copied Greek models, 
was in heart a Roman, and entered into the spirit of 
his country's traditions better than any man, lays the 
foundation of it in filial reverence, in the care of 
household gods. If the Roman entertained any of the 
Persian awe of fire, as the symbol of light and pene- 
trating power, it was expressed in his worship of Vesta, 
the goddess of the hearth, the preserver of family 
purity, and in the fire which was ever to be kept burn- 
ing within her temple. The power of the father lay at 
the root of his law and life ; and it was not, like the 
Chinese, a mere human apprehension, it was practi- 
cally and essentially connected with all his thoughts of 
a Divine Being. He looked upon the bonds of family 
life as implied in the existence of a commonwealth, — 
as its necessary basis and continual support. Upon 
any less real foundation so mighty a power could not 
have stood. Having such a ground, whatever threat- 
ened it with dissolution ultimately contributed to its 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 137 

strength. Conflicts of different orders of society brought 
out principles of the constitution which were previously- 
latent ; opposing principles, yet necessary to each other. 
And soon it seemed as if a power which had grown up 
by such regular and mysterious processes must be irre- 
sistible. Carthage, Egypt, Greece, bowed before it. 
The Parthian empire disputed with it the sovereignty 
of Asia. The countries of Western Europe it appeared 
specially appointed to subdue and civilize. The belief 
of Rome gave it, as we have seen, its centre ; in the 
capitol where Jove dwelt, the nation and the world 
which it ruled found the principle of their cohesion. 
The statesmen saw that it was so ; they lost the belief, 
but determined that it must be upheld for the state's 
sake. The Family they would have acknowledged it 
was expedient to uphold for the same reason ; but that 
refused to stand upon a fiction, to live merely because 
it was wanted by the politician. As all domestic bonds 
became relaxed, the forms of the religion became more 
consciously unreal. Then it was seen that the state 
could not exist any longer upon its old ground. A 
visible Emperor must supply the place of an invisible 
Law and Presence. The military sacrament of the 
soldiers to the commander must be the one substitute 
for the ancient reverence. And such was the force of 
this bond,sQ much of the feeling and principle of order 
still survived in it, that the state could last even for 
centuries with this thin plank separating it from the 
abyss. The plank cracked often, — gave way at last ; 
and the nations, which had been prepared for the day 
and the hour, seized the spoil. Before that catastrophe 
10 



138 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the proclamation of a set of Galilean fishermen, that a 
crucified man was the Lord of the World, had been 
believed by the emperors. "Roman paganism seemed 
to disappear from the earth. But its peculiar character, 
the secret of its power, the cause of its decay, should 
be carefully reflected on, or the history of Western 
Christendom for twelve hundred years will be to us an 
inexplicable riddle. 

V. Very soon after Rome became an empire it was 
discovered that there was a part of Europe which was 
more formidable to it than even the Parthian empire in 
the East. Intelligent Romans began to inquire very 
earnestly what that German race was which seemed to 
present the newest and strangest obstacle to Roman 
ascendency. They had a prophetic feeling that the 
question would be a very interesting one in after days 
to their own country and to mankind. They found a 
people who recalled to them the traditions of their own 
ancestors ; rude and scattered, full of individual en- 
ergy, severe and chaste, reverencing family bonds ; 
with a sense, however imperfectly developed, of social 
order. A few observations they made upon the faith 
of this people, which are well worthy of note. " The 
Germans looked upon day," says Tacitus, " as coming 
out of night, the last as the ground of the first. They 
appeared to pay a kind of worship to the earth. They 
looked upon themselves as descended from Mannus." 
It seemed to the Roman, trying to translate their no- 
tions into his own, that Mercury w^ their chief god. 
These hints, slight and imperfect as they are, throw 
great light upon the mythology of Germany and the 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 139 

North, as we receive it from those who lived under its 
influence. To trace it through all its mazes may be 
difficult, and not very profitable ; but there are certain 
great features in it which are worthy of earnest con- 
sideration. 

I did not endeavor to disconnect the mythology of 
Persia from its climate and scenery. The thoughts of 
the Magian were wonderfully affected by Eastern 
nights and days, an Eastern earth and sky. So like- 
wise were the thoughts of the Goth, by the murky at- 
mosphere in which he dwelt, by the dark woods which 
he must fell, by the seas out of which the solid land 
emerged or which broke in upon it. Doubtless, the 
phenomena of the world occasioned the Northerns 
great perplexity ; all the powers of earth, and air, and 
fire, and water are at work in their tales and poems. 
The conflicts of these powers may, in one sense, be 
said to be the subject of them. 

But we know little, indeed, about our ancestors, if 
we suppose that they were thinking merely about such 
matters. They described wars of giants, of good and 
evil powers. It is easy to say these giants only ex- 
press the struggles and throes of nature, — cultivation 
contending with barrenness, spring succeeding winter. 
But why are they giants ? Why do they take this per- 
sonal form ? Why, if winter and spring were chiefly 
in their minds, did they not speak of winter and spring ? 
Tacitus is most right in saying that the earth is the object 
of their study, perhaps of their worship ; but he is still 
more right in saying that they felt themselves derived 
from Mannus. Man is the subduer of the earth ; be- 



140 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

cause he lives upon it, tills it, sows it, rescues it from 
the waters, brings the harvests of autumn out of the 
frosts of winter, therefore do these Goths care about 
the earth. And those battles which they see going on 
upon it or beneath it, those struggles of gigantic powers 
of evil with deliverers and benefactors, are interpreted 
to them by what they feel going on in themselves ; 
they are the wars of Mannus, much more than of the 
earth, and sea, and sky. Read them in this light, and 
every Northern saga is full of profoundest interest and 
instruction. A mighty power of death and of darkness 
struggling to draw all creatures into itself; mightier 
powers of good struggling against it ; consuming fires 
that are to destroy what is corrupt ; life coming out of 
death, second birth, resurrection, — these are ideas by 
which you see that they were haunted and possessed. 
They could find no clew to the strange mystery, yet 
they felt that it was near them, and about them, and 
that there must be some bright sun, which would come 
forth one day to scatter the shadows, and show all 
things in their true relations and proportions. Yet it is 
equally true that Mannus himself and his origin are 
lost in the Infinite. Tacitus expresses the idea of the 
mythology in this respect too distinctly and definitely, 
but not unhappily, when he speaks of Mercury, the 
messenger of gods and men, who passes rapidly from 
heaven to earth, and from earth to the shades below, 
who connects each with the other, as the object of 
Gothic reverence. Such a being, only surrounded 
with vagueness and mist, not capable of being exhibited 
in a form like the Greek Hermes, or the Roman Mer- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 141 

cury, is the Northern Odin. Each new theorist about 
him will present him in a different aspect, — one as a 
mere mortal, to whom a history may be ascribed, — 
one as a mere Divinity, — one as a teacher of human 
wisdom, — one as merely the ideal of wisdom, — one 
perhaps as the representation of some physical process, 
— one as the establisher of a political order. Each 
may give plausible reasons for his opinion ; no wor- 
shipper of him could have told you which was true ; 
he would have felt that in some sense all must be true. 
Precisely the necessity of his mind was to find some 
object in which these characters might really meet ; 
who should bring the clear light out of the darkness, 
and be a conqueror in that war with the earth's 
•tormentors. 



I have now completed this division of my subject, 
and I may ask you for a moment to consider how the 
different portions of it are connected together, and what 
is the general result. Mahometanism, we see, stands 
upon a different ground from all the rest. It starts 
from the Divine Will, it assumes a declaration of that 
Will to men, it affirms men to be the servants of God 
to execute His Will. Hindooism has only the faintest 
conception of a Divine Will ; but it recognizes a Di- 
vine original Light or Intelligence from which the in- 
telligence in man proceeds, and which it is to contem- 
plate. In striving to ascertain what this Light is, — 
how it is distinct from the human intelligence, — the 
Brahmin becomes lost in speculation. The Buddhist 



142 THE RELIGIONS OF THE- WORLD. 

cuts the knot, practically makes man's intellect the 
origin of all things ; yet recognizes a certain universal 
Intelligence dwelling in the race, and concentrated 
from time to time in some person. Hindooism and 
Buddhism have been compelled in different ways to 
come down from the merely abstract region, and to 
speak of the Divinity as concerned with the doings of 
ordinary men ; as exercising influences beneficent or 
pernicious over them : each has been obliged to ex- 
plain what the universe has to do with the original In- 
telligence ; each has been compelled into an idolatry 
of material things, against which, in its first conception, 
it. is a protest. Both have struggled with Mahometan- 
ism, and been overcome by it; neither has been able 
to amalgamate with it ; for neither has it been found ■ 
to be a substitute. Buddhism in China has established 
itself side by side with a system of social order, the 
basis of which is the recognition of paternal authority, 
and which regards the knowledge of the invisible as 
unattainable. Entirely opposed to this system, Buddh- 
ism has been found nevertheless an indispensable sup- 
plement to it ; even for the accomplishment of its own 
purpose. These different faiths, which exercise a do- 
minion over so large a portion of the universe, claim 
something to satisfy them, something to unite them. 
Not one of them contains the solution of the difficulties 
which it has raised ; each testifies that there is a chasm 
which the other seems meant to fill up ; but it remains 
a chasm still. Not one of them can be satisfied by 
any philosophical theory about the universe, or about 
man, or about God, or about all of them. Mahometan- 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 143 

ism meets such theories by its primary proclamation, 
God is ; He must be a living, personal Being : he must 
be the King of men. Hindooism is continually at- 
tempting to philosophize, but every new turn of its his- 
tory proclaims, We want a Living Intelligence, which 
shall hold converse with men, and with which men 
may converse. Buddhism has been a continual effort 
at philosophy ; but every passage of its history pro- • 
claims, Philosophy will not do for us ; we want a Liv- 
ing Intelligence to dwell in man. And now we have 
to add some new evidence to this. First, we hear 
from the Persian a cry for some infinite, absolute 
Being, the ground of Light and Darkness, which he 
can only call Illimitable Time. Then from the Egyp- 
tian the witness of an Ammon, or hidden God. Then 
from the Greek the cry for something which he cannot 
express, — which must be veiled in mysteries, which 
the poet speaks of as irresistible Fate, which the 
philosopher says must be the Being, which cannot be 
material, and yet is no abstraction. The Roman must 
have an invisible God of the city, a righteous lawgiver, 
preserving the authority of his state, or it perishes. 
Unless in the heaven or the abyss there be one 
greater than Mannus, the dark thoughts of the Goth 
signify nothing. But none of them can be satisfied 
with the recognition of this hidden Being. There 
must be a manifestation of Him. From the immeas- 
urable Time a Light must come forth, and that Light 
must be a Person. An Ormuzd must speak living 
words, nay, must be a living Word. Ammon must 
assume forms ; the visible must, in some way, set 



144 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

forth the Invisible. One all clear and bright must be 
himself Wisdom to the Greeks, — must utter the 
thoughts of wisdom, which keep them a people, and 
then must scatter himself through a thousand visible 
images. The Jove of the capitol cannot be only there. 
His presence must come forth in the host and in the 
family. Odin must travel from land to land, teach, 
•give laws, open Walhalla to men. 

Look at these religions, and you see in them all a 
witness of unity. Look at them again, and you see 
there is something which divides them from each other. 
They confess that, if men are to unite, it must be in 
something above themselves ; they cannot unite ; for 
things beneath themselves, the accidents of life, the 
climate, the soil of the lands in which they dwell, 
seem to determine what it is that is above them. They 
confess that if men are to unite, it must be in some- 
thing above themselves : but the habits, tempers, tastes, 
of the worshippers determine what it is which is above 
them. 

This is the report which history gives of these re- 
ligions, — the stamp which they have left of themselves 
upon the actual universe. Dare you talk of all this as 
merely an illustration of the working of the religious 
principle in men ? Dare you use such a dry, withered, 
heartless abstraction, to get rid of the recollection that 
you have been hearing how beings of your own flesh 
felt and acted and suffered ? Or can you comfort 
yourselves with saying, " These have all passed away ; 
the Persian Ormuzd and Ahriman, — the Egyptian 
dream of types in the world which must have some 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 145 

antitype, — the Greek question, how is it I can create 
such marvels ? what is it I cannot create ? — the Ro- 
man sense of a divine order in the nation and family, 
t— the Odin .warfare of good and evil spirits ; they have 
passed away as visions of the night." Visions they 
were, but visions which came to men concerning the 
dreadful realities of their own existence. They were 
visions of the night, but by them men had to steer their 
vessels and shape their course ; without them all would 
have been dark. And we belong to the same race with 
the men who had these visions ; some nearer to us, 
some more distant, some brought up in regions utterly 
unlike our own, some almost our kinsmen after the 
flesh ; all our kinsmen in reality. It has not been a 
mistake, I believe, in our education, that we have busied 
ourselves so much with the legends of Greece and 
Rome. If we used them aright, they would not serve 
for the food of an idle dilettantism, — they would teach 
us reverence and fear. We should tremble as we re- 
membered, "These dreams of a beauty which eye 
hath not seen, or ear heard, have visited the hearts of 
human beings generations ago ; the dark and filthy 
imaginations which mingled with these dreams were 
engendered in the same hearts : by one as much as the 
other and by the fearful combination we know that 
those hearts were like our own. They will dwell to- 
gether in us, and in time the vile will seem real, the 
beautiful only a shadow, unless we can find that the 
beauty has been somewhere substantiated ; unless we 
can see the beauty apart from the corruption ; unless 
there is some power which can establish the one, and 
destroy the other, in ourselves." 



146 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Such reflections often come, I trust, to the young 
men of our land, as they read the classical fables. Yet 
these belong rather to a refined cultivation, and they 
may so possess the mind with the love of finite forms 
as to make it forget that those who conceived them 
could not be satisfied with them ; but cried for the In- 
finite beyond. It is otherwise with the tales of our 
own proper ancestors. These are bound up with the 
thoughts of our peasantry ; the most ignorant man feels 
that they represent some of the unspeakable fears and 
hopes of his spirit. And they clothe themselves in no 
graceful forms. The storms and earthquakes of nature 
are the only adequate types of the conflict which they 
speak of, a conflict in which human beings of that day 
were actually engaged. Are we not engaged in it too ? 
Have we asked ourselves whether we can bear up in it 
alone ? if not, whether we know where help in it is to 
be found ? 



PART II. 



RELATIONS OF THE RELIGIONS OF THE 
WORLD WITH CHRISTIANITY. 



LECTURE I. 

Why Judaism has not occupied a separate Place in 
these Lectures. Mahometanism related to Chris- 
tianity ON ITS JUDAICAL SlDE. NATURE OE THE EELA- 

tion indicated. wherein mahometanism differs 
from Judaism. Dangers to Christianity from the 
forgetfulness or predominance of its mahometan 
Side. How the Christian Faith and Church satisfy 
the Cravings of Mahometans. 

I spoke in my last Lecture of Mahometanism, Hin- 
dooism, and Buddhism, as the three great existing re- 
ligions of the world ; of the Persian, the Egyptian, the 
Greek, the Roman, and the Gothic, as the most con- 
spicuous of those which belong to the past. It may 
strike some of you, that in one of these lists, though 
you may scarcely be able to say in which, there was 
a capital omission. Might not even the letter of 
Boyle's will have reminded me, that the Christian 



148 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

missionary is likely to be encountered by Jews in all 
parts of the world ? Is there any faith which has had 
a more memorable past than theirs ? 

It is indeed true, that a person must take a most im- 
perfect view of society during the last eighteen hun- 
dred years, who forgets that the Jew has had a place 
in it. Upon whatever age, upon whatever portion of 
the world, he fixes his eye, this strange figure en- 
counters him. He sees men without a place which 
they can call their own upon the earth, still feeling 
themselves to be the nation which has been chosen out 
of all others to be the head of the earth ; men willingly 
submitting to the most grovelling occupations, and 
with a character seemingly conformed to these occu- 
pations, yet never deserted by a vision of past and 
future glory ; men trampled upon by all people, and 
yet exercising a mighty influence, one which has in- 
creased with the increase of riches and civilization, 
over the counsels of statesmen and princes ; men who, 
if the time should come when no God but Mammon is 
worshipped in the world, will carry a fearful recollec- 
tion into the temples of Mammon of one who may be 
his destroyer. It is true also that the Jew has never 
been without powerful arguments for that which he 
holds, and against that which he denies. He can 
always appeal to his own consistency in support of the 
first, — to the persecutions and crimes of Pagans, Ma- 
hometans, and Christians, as evidence in opposition to 
them. Though he cannot make converts, though he 
does not wish it, — for his business is to keep the 
family of Abraham distinct from all others, — he can 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 149 

do much to shake the faith of those among whom he 
dwells. In all times, of late years more especially, he 
has been able to adapt himself to prevailing habits of 
thought and feeling, tg become conspicuous in art and 
science, to enter into philosophical speculations, and 
strangely to mingle the lessons which he has received 
in the schools of the Prophets with the wisdom of those 
who most despise them. 

The Jew then may on these grounds be well said to 
belong to the present, his religion to be one of the ex- 
isting religions of the earth. He is a witness for some- 
thing which survives. But he is also, by his own sad 
confession, a witness for something which is departed. 
Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, exhibit the signs of a 
by-gone world to travellers who go in search of them. 
The Israelite carries the signs of the change which has 
befallen Palestine with him into the meanest street of 
every city of Europe, Asia, America. The rich mer- 
chant, the beggarly hawker, testify to the glory of 
David and Solomon. 

But there is this reason for not placing the Jew in 
either of those divisions to which I referred the other 
beliefs of mankind. We cannot go back in his case, 
as we did in the Mahometan, to the first promulgation 
of the faith, or, in the case of the Hindoo, to the earli- 
est Vedas, without finding ourselves engaged in the 
assertion or defence of that which is as dear to us as 
it is to him ; we cannot interpret his present position, 
except by comparing it with our own. In following 
the course which I marked out for myself originally, 
we shall, I believe, be enabled to consider this subject 



150 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

from its right point of view. I proposed to inquire 
how the religions which have passed under our review 
stand severally related to Christianity. The first of 
these was the Mahometan. N§w it is in the Jewish 
side of Christianity that we must seek for this relation. 
From the Old Testament we shall learn what are the 
great points of agreement between us and the Ma- 
hometan. In studying those points of agreement, we 
shall, perhaps, see more clearly the grounds of our 
difference both with the Mahometan and the modern 
Jew. 

I. I endeavored to show you in my first Lecture, 
that the mere dry, formal assertion of the unity of God, 
as an article of doctrine, was not that which had given 
Islamism its power. The proclamation, " There is 
one God," was no school formula ; it was the an- 
nouncement of a Living Being, acting, speaking, 
ruling. Now this is the leading characteristic of the 
Old Testament. Schoolmen giving you an account of 
it will say, that it is distinguished from all Pagan books 
by its assertion of the unity of the object of worship. 
But we have seen reason to think that this quality, 
taken alone, might not separate it from the early 
sacred writings of the Hindoos. Turn to the Book of 
Genesis or Exodus, and you at once feel the essential 
difference. There are no speculations about God, no 
questionings how man is to contemplate Him, or to be 
absorbed into His essence. He is creating the world 
according to a certain order ; He is making man in 
His own image ; He is placing man in a garden, fixing 
a certain prohibition for him, giving him a helpmeet, 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 151 

discovering his sin when he has broken the command, 
pronouncing a sentence upon him, promising him a 
blessing. He is punishing the murderer, visiting the 
earth with a flood, calling out a man to be a preserver 
of the race, sending forth his sons to people the earth, 
with the rainbow as a pledge of His mercy ; scattering 
them abroad when they wish to build a tower, and to 
make themselves a name ; calling a man out of his 
father's house, and bidding him go into a land which 
should be shown him ; promising him that in him and 
in his seed all the families of the earth should be blest; 
giving him a covenant, giving him a son ; trying the 
faith of the father ; revealing Himself to Isaac and 
Jacob ; guiding the Hebrew youth into Egypt ; causing 
him to bring his whole family thither ; hearing their 
cry when a king arose who knew not Joseph, and 
made them -slaves ; revealing Himself to Moses as the 
I Am ; sending signs and judgments upon Pharaoh, 
bringing the people out of Egypt, appointing them a 
feast in memorial of their deliverance from generation 
to generation ; feeding them with manna, and causing 
the rock to be struck when they were thirsty ; pro- 
claiming the Law to them amidst thunders and light- 
nings ; prescribing the form of the tabernacle, and the 
order of the priesthood ; laying down the ordinary 
rules which were suitable to them as an Eastern 
people ; going before them in the ark of the cove- 
nant. 

Nothing, you see, is set forth in the Hindoo manner, 
as a dream, or thought, or reflection about God ; all is 
set forth as coming from Him ; He is, and He is doing. 



152 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

This is the Old Testament language ; this is the lan- 
guage which the Mahometan asserts must be true still. 
It is a record, he said, but not merely a record, — it 
tells us of Him who was, and is, and is to come ; of 
One by whose command the world was made, and by 
whose command it subsists ; who rules and directs in 
the affairs of men,* not less now than of old. I con- 
ceive that there is nothing in Christianity so primary 
and fundamental as this belief ; nothing which it is so 
necessary for us to assert, in the simple, practical lan- 
guage of the Old Testament, and not to dilute by any 
modern phrases or unreal substitutes. It was on this 
account especially that I violated chronology, by con- 
sidering Mahometanism before either of the other re- 
ligions with which it divides Asia ; for I believed that 
it had taken hold of the great first principle, — that it 
had begun at the beginning ; not working its way up 
to the divine ground from the earthly, but assuming 
that ground as its starting point. And, at the same 
time, I wished you to feel how idle the assertion is, 
that this doctrine merely belongs to the world in its in- 
fancy ; how when it seemed to have become obsolete, 
amidst the arguments and discussions of the schools, it 
stood forth again as a living, terrific reality : as a truth 
which men must be taught by the sword, if they would 
be taught it in no other way. 

II. Next, the Mahometan believed that the Lord of 
All does actually make His will known to men ; that 
He speaks, and that they can hear and obey His voice. 
This is the second most obvious characteristic of the 
Old Testament. Abram is called out of his land by 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 153 

the unseen Lord. He knows that he is, and he does 
what he is commanded. Moses is bidden to go in be- 
fore Pharaoh ; he shrinks from the work, but he is 
certain that the Lord God of Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob has sent him. Thus Revelation, or the declara- 
tion of God's mind and will — of God himself — to 
man, is assumed as the ground of action, and history, 
and knowledge. It is not put as a vague, distant pos- 
sibility that such communications may be made to man, 
that they may reach him ; it is declared that they must 
reach him, or that he is helpless and ignorant. He 
must act under a divine call of some kind, or he cannot 
act rightly. The Mahometan affirms that this truth of. 
the old time is a truth of the later time. In the seventh 
century after Christ, Mahomet claims to be called of 
God to a work. We may believe that in many points 
he greatly mistook the nature of this call, of this work. 
But the principle that any man who rouses the heart of 
a nation, who proclaims any deep truth in the midst of 
it, has a calling, — a calling from God, — that he has 
no right to deny it or to explain it away ; that he can- 
not do what he is meant to do except on the faith of it ; 
this is a conviction which we Christians, like the Ma- 
hometan, have inherited, or ought to have inherited, 
from the Jew. Our own language is framed upon the 
supposition : we speak of callings and vocations. If 
the words mean nothing, it is a great pity that we 
should use them, It is lending ourselves to a false- 
hood, — it is contracting a false habit of mind. But I 
am sure they have meant something to men in past 
times, — to all good and great men, who have really 
11 



154 THE RELIGIONS OF TUT WORLD. 

served their generation in any kind of work. And I 
do trust and believe that they mean something to some 
of us still ; that we feel we should be parting with 
what is most precious, if they ceased to mean that 
something, — that we desire they should mean much 
more. 

III. But, thirdly, the Mahometan, while he acknowl- 
edges that the voice of God thus speaks to men, be- 
lieves as strongly that there is meant to be some record 
of His utterances, — some book of which it may be 
said, This is the book. He cannot part with this con- 
viction ; it is necessary to him. Whether or not he 
can explain how and why the Koran should cease at 
a certain point, he is sure that it was to cease at a 
certain point, — that there must be a Book which is 
complete, and to which men may refer as an authority. 
The Israelites, of whom we read in the Old Testament, 
could not of course contemplate that Book as a com- 
plete Book : it was growing. Their own lives and his- 
tories were contributing to it. Their Patriarchs had no 
Book. Still, from the time that the Law was delivered, 
they were convinced that they had thai written in endur- 
ing letters which proceeded from God. They believed 
that His communications were meant to be preserved 
in letters. They labored to preserve them, and to keep 
them apart from all which they believed was not His. 
They had confidence that God Himself would watch 
over His own Revelation. Upon us this conviction also 
has descended ; we agree with the Mahometan, that 
the belief in a Book of Revelation, a completed Book, 
is not incompatible with the idea of God ruling the 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 155 

world now, — of His calling men to do a work for Him 
now ; nay, that the one truth is necessary to the other. 
Why Mahomet required a new Bible in the seventh cen- 
tury, why we do not require it, is a point to be consid- 
ered hereafter ; that which I am pressing here is, that both 
alike do feel the need of a Bible, — of a Divine Book. 

IV. But the Mahometan does not only look upon 
the peculiar Prophet as called of God. He believes 
that the whole body of Islamites is a body called by 
God to the work of proclaiming Him, and putting down 
whatever sets itself in opposition to Him. I need not 
remind you that the children of Israel had this belief 
before them. In the strength of it they went, — a little 
handful of men, who were lately Egyptian slaves, — 
and drove out the Canaanitish people ; beating down 
their walls, and slaying them with the edge of the 
sword. They were not a wild, undisciplined host, — a 
terrific horde, like the Huns or the Avars of later times ; 
they were most orderly ; divided according to tribes, 
each man encamping beside the standard of the house 
of his fathers, marshalled under regular leaders, prac- 
tising the ordinary methods and stratagems of war. 
Still, that which gave them all their energy, that which 
made them one people, that which caused their disci- 
pline to be an instrument of their valor, not a substitute 
for it, was a belief that the Lord of Hosts was among 
them, that they were His soldiers, and moving under 
His command. They were sure that they had a com- 
mission from Him to punish a people the cup of whose 
iniquities was full. They were sure they were not 
doing a work for themselves, but were executing the 



156 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

purposes of His Will. And this the Mahometan says 
is the true law of armies, the right spirit for men of 
later as well as earlier days to fight in and to act in. 
They must feel that an Unseen Power is in the midst 
of their host ; that they are His soldiers. We are 
often told that the opinion is a mistaken and a danger- 
ous one ; one which belonged to Judaism, and which 
Christianity discountenances. I cannot think so. That 
there is a sense in which the disciples of the Koran 
have perverted Jewish example, I shall endeavor to 
show presently. Perhaps we shall find that the per- 
version has been in not adhering to it closely enough. 
But I do not think that any Christian nation has ever 
been the worse for believing that it was acting as the 
minister of God. Our forms and proclamations always 
express this. Have we been better when these forms 
and proclamations were real and significant, or when 
they were false ? It seems to me, that the more we 
come to think these phrases not merely phrases, but 
the expressions of what is true, the more simple 
and honest our lives will be, and that when to any 
nation they become mere phrases, its life, I need 
not say its Christianity, is gone. I feel veiy sure that 
the sense of a Divine Presence has never utterly for- 
saken, and does not forsake, any host of Christian men 
fighting by land or sea : or that, if it do, their arms 
become palsied, and they become the shame of their 
enemies. They may act very inconsistently with this 
profession ; the inconsistency no doubt weakens the 
reality of it ; but it is not a mere profession. Asking 
the help of God may be a poor formality to easy, lux- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 157 

urious men ; those who are on the eve of battle, who 
are standing between life and death, have no time for 
words unless they mean something. And they have a 
signification as of old, otherwise a feeble force would 
not be able to put a greater one to flight, supported by 
all the advantages of position, and the resources of art. 
When our soldiers shall quite disbelieve that the same 
Lord who went forth with Joshua and Gideon is with 
them, see whether we shall have tidings of courage and 
triumph, and not rather of cowardice and ignominy. 

V. We saw how much the office of the caliph or 
sovereign blended itself with Mahometan life and his- 
tory, how the visible centre of the host recalled to each 
soldier the sense of his allegiance to Allah the Unseen 
King. Here, again, we are reminded of the Old Tes- 
tament. David, and every true king, felt that he 
reigned by covenant with God, that he was the witness 
of Him to the people. And his people returned the 
feeling. Looking up to him, they felt that they were a 
people indeed, — it was not a dream ; they were so 
actually ; they had one heart, one with each other, 
one with those who had gone before them, one with 
those who should come after them. Of course such 
language is liable to misinterpretation. There were 
crimes and divisions in the times of David and Heze- 
kiah, as at all times. Scripture does not conceal them, 
but declares them, and shows the punishment of them. 
When any evil deed was perpetrated by the king, it 
destroyed the reverence of the people for him, and so 
their own unity. On the other hand, their evil con- 
dition reacted upon him, and led him to depend more 



158 THE RELIGIOxXS OF THE WORLD. 

on the number of his armed men than upon the strength 
of Israel. These facts, far from weakening the asser- 
tion I made, illustrate it. Do not they seem also to 
prove that these records are not merely records of the 
past, or of a particular nation, but that they explain the 
bonds by which sovereign and subjects are connected 
according to a divine and immutable law, in all times 
and in all nations ? So the Mahometan thought in his 
own case. Had the people whom he attacked felt the 
same ; had there been that real vital relation between 
the monarch and those who paid him homage, which 
there was between the caliph and the soldiers of the 
Crescent, those soldiers would not have triumphed as 
they did. I am making no rash assertion ; but one 
borne out by history. Asia was not able to resist the 
armies of the prophet, because there was in it no such 
national feeling as that which I have described. Con- 
stantinople could not ultimately resist them, for this 
feeling was perishing in the Greek empire. They were 
resisted in Western Europe, for there a set of Christian 
nations had gradually grown up, believing, amidst many 
confusions and inconsistencies no doubt, but still prac- 
tically believing, that their kings were covenant kings, 
reigning in the name of the Lord, as much as the kings 
of Judah had ever done. 

These are some of the points of real affinity between 
Christianity and Mahometanism. I say Christianity ; 
meaning thereby, that though these principles belong to 
the Old Testament, and not to the New, as such, yet 
that Christians can adopt them and realize them, and 
that Jews, who seem to stand upon the ground of the 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 159 

Old Testament, cannot. I do not say this in reproach 
to them. I merely state a fact. All the most living 
principles of the Old Testament, those which were 
embodied in the history of the Jewish people, have 
become dead letters to their descendants. They retain 
the acknowledgment of the Divine unity as against any 
thing whidfe contradicts it, or seems to them to contra- 
dict it. But the sense of a Living Being, of One speak- 
ing, acting, ruling, this may dwell deep down in the heart 
of Jews ; it may have been drawn out by persecution 
in many ; but, so far as we can judge, it is always 
threatening to become dried in a formula among the 
orthodox Israelites, to lose itself in pantheistical phrases 
among the liberal and intellectual. The former class 
will readily acknowledge a Divine Book, but for the 
very purpose of keeping out the notion of any real 
intercourse between heaven and earth since it was 
closed. And yet this Book will not satisfy them ; it 
must be stifled under Rabbinical interpretations ; all its 
practical, homely, awful realities, must be reduced into 
notions, and speculations, and frivolities. The liberal 
class will gladly avail themselves of phrases about a 
living voice, that they may throw off the burden of 
these interpretations, and in fact of the Book which they 
oppress. But the living voice does not proceed from a 
personal being who has a right to command his crea- 
tures ; there is no bowing to it as to that which must 
not, cannot be resisted ; no acknowledgment of a high 
calling, no feeling of a relation to the past ; only a 
claim to be independent, to think and feel differently 
from those who went before, — a very natural tenden- 



160 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

cy, surely, in men who have been under a grievous 
yoke, but offering little hope that they will be emanci- 
pated from it, or will not fall under a more grievous 
one still. No wonder then tljat the reality of the un- 
seen should be lost in that very worship which was 
established as the witness of it, that the Jewish ceremo- 
nial should bind the spirit to earth instead ofcraising it. 
No wonder that the most vulgar of all outward things, 
the mere coin by help»of which one is exchanged for an- 
other, should have become the great object of heart de- 
votion. To speak of this people as not having now any 
sense of the relation of a people to its Sovereign, would 
be a mockery : that heavy loss is of course inevitable. 
It is far pleasanter to remember that the sense of a na- 
tional existence, of a national calling, has, through all 
these centuries of degradation, not forsaken them. It 
has been upheld by that glorious hope of a Deliverer 
to come hereafter, which neither the Rabbinism of one 
of their schools, nor the Pantheism of another, has been 
able to extinguish. They had been almost six hundred 
years without a temple or a capital, scorned and hated 
by all people, when Mahomet arose; yet when he bade 
them join his standard as the reviver of the true faith 
of their fathers, as the asserter of the Lord Jehovah 
against his enemies, they utterly refused the invitation. 
He thought, and perhaps rightly, that they were too 
degraded to understand the words which he spoke to 
them, too little worshippers of Him whom their Scrip- 
ures proclaimed, to believe that He could really inter- 
fere in the affairs of the world. The Prophet's first 
great war, therefore, was directed against them. If 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 161 

they yielded, they were not crushed, still less con- 
verted. The belief that they belonged to the true 
stock of Abraham, and he at best only to an illegiti- 
mate offshoot from it, that they were children of the 
promises, and he was not, sustained them. Here was 
the one sure thing which they couW hold fast, a token 
that the lock of hair on the head of Samson, shorn, 
blinded, and captive, might still grow again. There 
was a reality and continuity in the national feeling of the 
Jew which the Islamite felt he could not encounter. He 
acknowledged a sovereign, his empire was to spread 
far and wide ; but except so far as the caliph or repre- 
sentative of Mahomet was concerned, this empire had 
no connection with any feeling of family, or even coun- 
try. Mecca became indeed the shrine of religious 
worship for all Mahometans ; but the practical centre 
of Mahometan society was at one time in Persia, at 
another in Spain, at last in Turkey. So that a system, 
in many respects like the Jewish, was in this one 
directly opposed to it. The Jews had grown from a 
family into a nation, and, so long as they continued a 
nation, were the great witnesses against all attempts 
at universal sovereignty. The Mahometans, setting at 
naught family distinctions and national distinctions, 
attempted to bind all races and languages together, 
under the authority of one man, the successor of the 
Prophet. 

This is a remark of great importance with a view to 
the subject on which we are now engaged. I have 
shown you that there are many points in which Chris- 
tianity and Mahometanism both claim affinity with Ju- 



162 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

daism, as it was set forth in the Old Testament. Now 
we are come to a point in which they both separate 
from it. The Mahometan claims to be a universal re- 
ligion ; to set up a universal society. The Gospel does 
so too. The questions we have now to consider are, 
on what basis these universal societies respectively rest, 
and what is the relation between them. 

I. We have seen that it is common to Judaism, to 
Mahometanism, to Christianity, that they assert the will 
of a Living Being as the ground of all things, that they 
speak of Him as declaring Himself, as exercising a con- 
tinual, not an occasional, government over men. This 
recognition of a Divine, personal, unseen Sovereignty ; 
of One who is not sought out by men, but who seeks men ; 
who calls them, and chooses them to do His work, is the 
strength of all three. Each one of them becomes help- 
less when this faith is lost, or is exchanged for any other. 
But if you look at the records of the Old Testament, 
you will be struck by nothing so much as this, — that 
the Divine Being is continually said to be declaring His 
Name to men. In other words, it is not the fact of 
His existence chiefly which He is teaching them to ac- 
knowledge ; but His character, — what manner of Being 
He is. He calls upon them to obey a will ; each act 
of obedience brings them into closer acquaintance 
with Him who gives the command. 

II. Hence we are able to understand the calling of 
the Jewish Prophet. We are expressly told that he is 
called to know this Name. The character of God re- 
veals itself to him in the different circumstances of his 
own history, or his nation's history. He is taught that 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 163 

the evil which he is conscious of in himself, and which 
he sees in others, comes from unlikeness to the perfect 
Being in whose image he is created. He has but a 
glimpse of the Divine purposes and character, but it is 
such a glimpse as is suitable to his necessities and the 
necessities of his time. It enables him to understand 
what he is, and what his nature is, without God, — 
what the blessing is of being called by Him, — what 
the end of his calling is ; namely, to make this Name 
known to his countrymen, to bring it out in opposition 
to the evil which is most prevailing among them. 

III. And so too he understands, and is able to set 
forth, the purpose of his nation's calling. It, too, was 
to proclaim this righteous Name, — to exhibit the con- 
flict between God and all forms of evil, — to show that 
righteousness is a reality, and not a dream, — that the 
government of the world is based upon it, — that wrong 
and oppression are not meant to triumph, — that the 
earth is not meant to be a den of robbers. 

IV. But such a Revelation as this, though it may 
be handed down in enduring letters, — though it may 
become a possession for all generations, could never 
merely be delivered to men as a book of sentences or 
maxims ; it must come forth in a gradual history, — a 
history of Divine acts and human acts. 

The Revelation assumes that God is altogether dis- 
tinct from His creatures ; it must enable us to feel that 
He is distinct from them. It declares that He has 
made man in his own image ; it must enable us to feel 
practically that this assertion also is true. It treats man 
as we find him, full of wrong and evil ; it treats man 



164 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

as capable of the highest good, — as unsatisfied till he 
attains that good. We must learn how these two things 
are compatible. It must be a book of life, then, not 
merely of letters, — a record of real men, and real 
events. It must show how the Divine Will directed 
events, and disciplined men for that perfect good, that 
knowledge of Himself, which He had designed for 
them. It must show how He cultivates those faculties 
in His creature which He has given ; how He enables 
them to overcome the darkness and evil in the midst of 
which they are struggling. 

V. These are very obvious characteristics of the 
Jewish Revelation : its origin in a personal Being ; its 
recognition of a righteous Name ; its speaking of each 
class in the nation, and of the whol$ nation, as called 
to declare that Name ; its human, practical, and histor- 
ical form. But there is another characteristic as obvi- 
ous. The history is always pointing to a completion, 
and that completion in a Person. The prophets have 
a vision of a King, who shall be the manifestation of 
God, — the perfect image of Him, — the Man, — the 
Deliverer of the called nation, the ruler of all the na- 
tions : who should establish righteousness, should open 
the unseen world, should unite earth and heaven. For 
such a one, these Prophets say, David and his line 
were the preparation, — He would readily establish a 
universal kingdom. Now Christians affirm that the 
ground of universal society is the Revelation of this 
King. This Son of God, they say, has been mani- 
fested ; He in whom this perfect Image dwelt ; He has 
exhibited that Image in the life and acts of a man, in 



RELATIONS WITH CHEISTIANITY. 165 

the poverty and death of a man ; He, as a man, 
has exercised dominion over the powers of nature ; 
as a man, wrestled with spiritual evil ; as a man, 
triumphed over death ; as a man, ascended to the right 
hand of God ; He having so united man to God, has 
sent down His Spirit to dwell among men, that they 
might be one family, and glorify the Father of all in 
Him. The universal kingdom, say they, must be a 
fatherly kingdom. The Lord of it must be a suffering 
man, who is yet the Son of God. That which makes 
it one, and enables men to acknowledge God as one, 
must be a uniting, reconciling Spirit, who raises them 
above the broken forms and shadows of earth, — above 
those material things, in which there is nothing but 
division, into the true unity, the perfect, absolute Love. 
This, according to the Christian's faith, being the 
kingdom which is meant for all men, he must believe 
that God Himself designs that it should be made known 
to men ; that all people should be brought into it. 
Men now, as much as formerly, must be commissioned 
servants of God for this end : there must be distinct 
callings tending to the accomplishment of it. All who 
have been brought to acknowledge t^e true King must 
have a share in the calling. But that particular work 
which was assigned to the Jewish nation, of putting down 
wrong and violence, of asserting justice and judgment, 
though it can never be obsolete, though each nation 
must be called upon in its own place and circum- 
stances to fulfil it, cannot be the highest work of all. 
For He who did the highest work of all, did it by suf- 
fering, submission, sacrifice ; the greatest triumph over 



166 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the greatest evils was won in this way. Power mani- 
fested itself in weakness ; He who was most meek, 
proved Himself to be most a King. He who most 
proved Himself to be Divine, did so by becoming one 
with the poorest and vilest. This was not a novelty in 
the history of the world ; in a measure it had been 
shown before, that what is greatest is best able to 
stoop ; that what can most bear to be crushed, has 
most capacity of life ; that each thing must die before 
it can attain its perfection. The whole history of the 
world, rightly read, would illustrate this lesson : above 
all, it had been illustrated by the prophets and holy 
men of the Old Testament : nay, those very exertions 
of national strength and energy, which seem to set this 
principle at naught, were themselves exhibitions of it. 
The, glory of the Israelitish conquest of Canaan was 
this, that it was the triumph of weakness over strength, 
of infused spiritual might over the height of walls and 
the bulk of giants. 

But though men had been learning this lesson grad- 
ually, the time which fully brought it out, which set 
at naught all pretensions of outward strength to do- 
minion, which shelved that the power of God Himself 
must be exhibited through weakness and death, in 
order that it may be felt to be the power of Love, — this 
was of necessity the beginning of a new era. Hence- 
forth surely every new event of history would demon- 
strate this truth afresh. Whatever power was working 
in the world must submit to this, or be broken by it. 
The evidence might be various, complicated, often 
contradictory ; but it would all tend to this point, — it 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 167 

would assert a Loving Will as the ground of all things ; 
that that Will had been fully manifested to men in the 
person of a man, who delighted to do it ; that it can 
only accomplish its ends by bringing the wills of men 
into subjection to itself. 

Now Mahometanism formally sets at naught this 
idea of a Divinp and universal kingdom ; treats it as a 
mere imagination which outrages all simplicity. It 
goes back to the one principle of God's sovereignty ; 
cares nothing for the gradual unfolding of a Name 
through a history of living acts; assumes that the 
Book is given to the Prophet as a complete scheme of 
life ; affirms that it is the commission of the faithful to 
diffuse faith in this Book, and in the fact of the Divine 
sovereignty through the world ; for this purpose invests 
its caliph or sovereign with absolute dominion. In the 
seventh century after Christ, Mahomet taught that the 
world was to begin its history again ; but to begin it 
with no hope of a progress. That principle, which had 
been the mere starting-point of Jewish faith, the ground 
of what it was learning for nineteen hundred years, 
was to be the one, all-sufficing maxim of Mahometan 
life. The Koran was to make it the one all-sufficing 
maxim for generations. 

Grand then as was the truth which Mahomet pro- 
claimed, needful as the proclamation of it was for the 
overthrow of Jewish and Christian unbelievers, he did 
but reaffirm the primary confession of both ; he denied 
that which made this primary confession consistent 
in itself and effectual for man. By this denial he 
sanctioned and adopted some of the worst, most char- 



168 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

acteristic superstitions and evils of the Jews and Chris- 
tians against whom he protested. They had substituted 
words for realities ; faith in notions for faith in God ; 
he, in seeming to add a new revelation, destroyed the 
vital, historical, progressive character of the old ; in 
publishing newer and later notions, set mankind at a 
more hopeless distance from Him to ^whom these no- 
tions related. By this denial he made the acts and 
struggles of Islamism unintelligible. For beginning in 
weakness, triumphing through faith, this doctrine was 
a witness for the Christian principle which it set at 
naught. The grandeur of the Crescent can be under- 
stood only by the light which falls upon it from the 
Cross. Because the Mahometan recognizes a mere 
Will governing all things, and that Will not a loving 
Will, he is converted, as we saw that he had been in 
the course of his. history, from a noble witness of a 
Personal Being into the worshipper of a dead necessity. 
Because he will not admit that there has been a Man 
in the world who was one with God, — a Man who 
exercised power over nature, and yet whose main glo- 
ry consisted in giving up Himself, — therefore he can- 
not really assert the victory of man over visible things 
when he tries most to do so. He glorifies the might 
of arms, when he most talks of the might of submission. 
Because he does not acknowledge a loving will acting 
upon men's wills, to humble them in themselves, and 
to raise them to God, therefore he becomes the en- 
slaver of his fellows, therefore cheerful obedience to a 
master, which for a while distinguished him, becomes 
servitude to a tyrant. Because he will not acknowl- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 169 

edge that the highest and divinest unity is that of love, 
but rests all upon the mere unity of sovereignty, he 
has never been able to establish one complete govern- 
ment upon the earth. It has been found that such a 
universality or unity is merely material ; that it has no 
root in the nature of things, — in the Divine order ; 
that each new age must do something to weaken its in- 
tegrity and hasten its dissolution. 

Two questions, I hope, may have been partly an- 
swered by these observations. The first is, whether 
Christianity must abandon its claims to be a Revelation, 
in order that it may deal fairly with the Mahometan ? 
The second, whether it can strengthen and quicken that 
faith of his which we found was ready to perish ? 
Whatever pretends only to be a better system of no- 
tions, a better scheme of conduct than his own, he will 
reject while he has the courage and constancy of his 
fathers ; will only receive because he has sunk into a 
state in which it is indifferent what he holds, or rather, 
in which it is impossible for him with a real vital grasp 
to hold any thing. Mahomet was believed by those, 
and those only, who felt that he brought a message 
from God ; nothing which does not come as a message 
from God can reach the hearts of those who still ac- 
knowledge him. And of what form must the message 
be ? If it sets at naught the first conditions of his 
original faith, nay, of his very existence, this he is cer- 
tain cannot be from God ; yea, he knows it must be 
from the Devil. Only that which assumes this as its 
eternal foundation, and which deepens and expands it 
so that the facts of human life which seem least in 
12 



170 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

accordance with it shall be shown to rest upon it, will 
carry that Divine stamp which the reason and con- 
science it awakens will recognize. Therefore we agree 
with the arguments of our opponents to this extent. 
Supposing they had proved the Gospel not to be a reve- 
lation, but only a product of the human intellect, their 
conclusion is incontestable. It ought not to be pre- 
sented to the Mahometan ; it is utter folly, or else cru- 
elty, to inflict the proclamation upon him. But if it 
does not follow, from the likeness which has been de- 
tected between Mahometanism, Judaism, and Christian- 
ity, that they are all equally deceived in their great 
postulate ; if it appears that Christianity interprets that 
postulate, and prevents it from sinking into a dead no- 
tion ; then we have found the power which can avenge 
the outrages and injuries of Islamism, preserving the 
precious fragments of truth which are lodged within* 
it, forming them into a whole, making them effectual 
for the blessing of all the lands over which it reigns. 

And surely, if this be the way in which we can and 
should speak to the Mahometan, no other can befit us 
in our intercourse with the Jew. Whatever there is in 
him of strength or earnestness clings to the belief that 
God spake to his fathers. Systems, rabbinical and phil- 
osophical, may choke that belief; money-getting habits 
may almost extinguish it. But it haunts him ; it is an 
oppression to him, from which in these ways he seeks 
to be delivered when he is in an evil state of mind ; it 
is his only consolation and hope when he rises into a 
higher one. With it is connected that sense of nation- 
ality which is even yet his noblest characteristic, how- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 171 

ever mixed it may be with sin and weakness. To it is 
linked that hope of a coming Deliverer which some- 
times cheers him amidst all the misery and anguish of 
his actual condition. A religion which is not a mes- 
sage from God, not an unveiling of Him, is at once 
felt by him to be a fantasy. He may adopt the mod- 
ern talk about the religious instinct or principle creating 
its own object ; but it is in his mouth, if in no other 
person's, absolutely insincere. Again then we say, if 
Christianity be not a Revelation, or we do not think it 
is, we are right to keep it from the Jew, as being some- 
thing with which his mind can have no possible affinity. 
But if it is this ; if it is such a revelation as rests upon 
his data, as justifies his nationality, as establishes his 
hope of a Deliverer, while it takes from these convic- 
tions that narrowness which he is beginning to find 
incompatible with his apprehensions respecting the 
condition and greatness of man ; shows how the na- 
tionality, without being lost, may be expanded into a 
universal fellowship ; hinders the vision of a future 
revelation from degenerating into the expectation of a 
sensual and mundane felicity, by declaring that the Re- 
deemer has come already to claim Man for his posses- 
sion, and to rescue him from his earthly bondage ; then 
we may feel in this case that there is one power, and 
but one in the world, which can raise the fallen Israel- 
ite to a new and spiritual life. 

There is, however, another view of the relations of 
Christianity with Judaism and Mahometanism, — an- 
other, and a most important one. If Christianity de- 
serve that character in which I have endeavored to pre- 



172 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

sent it, it has, and it ought to have, its Judaical and 
Mahometan side. It may, as I have said, alienate 
this part of its own possession ; it may forget the great 
truth which it has inherited from Judaism, the truth of 
a living King and Lord of the World ; it may try to 
sever the doctrine of Christ from this absolute and eter- 
nal ground ; then that doctrine loses all its meaning, 
becomes a shadow, and not a substance, — a dogma, 
not a living word. Then God does assuredly raise up 
some witness for this truth, lest men should be robbed 
of it. But it is also possible for Christians to exalt the 
Judaical or Mahometan side of Christianity exclusively, 
to become, in fact, practically Jews or Mahometans, 
though they do not belong to the family of Abraham, 
and may care nothing about the Arabian Prophet. In 
practice Christians have done this when they have at- 
tempted to copy Jewish example in the manner of 
propagating their faith : really copying not that, but 
Mahometan example : for we truly copy Jewish exam- 
ple, as I have shown, when we go forth as national 
bodies, under our national sovereign, to resist wrong 
and robbery, and to maintain the position which God 
has given us ; we copy Mahometan example when we 
attempt to spread the principles of the Universal Fami- 
ly, which is based upon the Love of God, and the 
Sacrifice of Christ, and the gift of the spirit of meek- 
ness and of charity, by any other methods than those 
of love, and sacrifice, and meekness. We seem to 
copy Jewish example, we really copy Mahometan 
example, when we seek for any visible, mortal man to 
reign over the Universal Family ; for the Jewish king 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 173 

reigned not over the universe, but over a particular na- 
tion : and so soon as a universal society grew out of 
the national one, it was the glorious proclamation that 
an Unseen King, who had ascended to the right hand 
of God, was its only Sovereign. We seem to copy 
Jewish example, we really copy Mahometan example, 
when we set visible and outward rewards before us as 
the prizes of our high calling ; for though the Jew 
lived especially to assert God's dominion over the earth, 
and to rule it, and subdue it for Him, yet the reward 
he always kept in sight was, that he might know Him 
who exercised righteousness and judgment in the earth, 
that he might awake up after His likeness, and be sat- 
isfied with it. In like manner we copy the example of 
the modern Jew and of the Mahometan, not of the an- 
cient Jew, or if of the ancient Jew, only of the formal, 
heartless Pharisee, when we receive the Bible, not as a 
record of actual doings, of actual intercourse between 
a living Being and His creatures upon earth, but only 
as a collection of notions and opinions, about which we 
are to dispute and tear each other in pieces. Still more 
effectually do we assume the character of the servant 
of the Prophet, of the degenerate Israelite, when we 
set up the dry confession of God's sovereignty against 
his righteousness, supposing that His acts are ever 
acts of self-will ; that His glory is ever any thing but 
the glory of purity, and goodness, and truth. In all 
these ways we may prove that there is indeed a very 
near relation between our belief and theirs, inasmuch 
as we can hold the one under the name of the other. 
Again, we may adopt what some would call, I think 



174 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

wrongly, a merely theoretical Judaism, or Mahometan- 
ism ; we may seem to copy Jewish example by assert- 
ing the simplicity of God's nature ; by denying the 
possibility of a man manifesting forth the Unseen God, 
by rejecting the belief of a Father and of a Son, and 
of a Spirit who binds them together in an ever-blessed 
Unity. Why this is not the adoption of the true Judai- 
cal Faith, but the rejection of it, I have explained al- 
ready ; it has been ever ready to issue in the dryness 
of modern Judaism, wherein all which we see alive in 
the Old Testament is petrified. Now especially that 
result is inevitable ; for now, less than in any former 
day, is it possible to speak of God as if he stood in no 
relation to man. The tendency of our time is to con- 
found Him with His creatures, with the works of His 
hands ; to lose all thought of His distinctness ; to re- 
gard Him as only the conception of man's mind, a 
sort of synonyme for man's thinking faculty, or for the 
life which dwells in things. Against such notions the 
records of Judaism and Mahometanism are mighty and 
standing protests : but they are more and more ineffect- 
ual protests. They show why such notions of God 
can never satisfy human beings who know their own 
necessities ; not what these notions signify, and how 
they are to be satisfied. 

It is true, then, that the temptations of Jews and 
Mahometans are our temptations ; that we carry their 
practical confusions and divisions within our own bo- 
soms. At every moment we are liable to fall into 
them. Each careless step we take, each unholy tem- 
per we indulge, the neglect of our duties, the tolerance 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 175 

of our evil, is always increasing the danger. It is true 
also that the Christian has no. right to undervalue any 
good thing which he finds in any Jew or Mahome- 
tan ; it flows from a principle which he ought to hold 
fast, and which ought to produce the same or better 
fruits in him.^ While we acknowledge that every right 
act in them deserves tenfold more admiration than it 
could deserve in us, and that all our evil acts must be 
done with a ten-thousandfold greater sense of wrong 
and less of excuse, this confession does not in the least 
affect what we believe ; for Christianity is not con- 
cerned in justifying our sins, but in condemning them : 
it does not say that any particular set of men, calling 
themselves by the Christian name, are better than 
others ; but it says that God will be true, though every 
man be a liar ; that His kingdom will be established, 
whether we who belong to it care that it should be 
established, or cut ourselves off from it. And the 
same conscience which tells us of our evil, forces each 
of us to say : " This evil comes not from my faith, but 
from indifference to it. It comes not from my holding 
too fast by that which is simple and old, when I might 
be seeking for a new and finer Christianity. It comes 
simply from my forgetting the Creed of my childhood. 
For if I did believe in God the Father Almighty, Mak- 
er of Heaven and Earth, I should be acknowledging 
that Will which Jews and Mahometans acknowledge 
as the ground of all things : only I should be confess- 
ing it as a loving and fatherly Will. If I did be- 
lieve in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, who was 
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, 



176 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and 
buried, who descended into hell, and rose again the 
third day from the dead, who ascended into heaven, 
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Al- 
mighty, who from thence shall come to judge the quick 
and dead, I should feel and understand that there is 
indeed a Man who will reign over the world, and judge 
it as Jews and Mahometans teach ; but that this Man is 
the Son of God and the Son of Man ; one who before 
He claimed our homage, submitted to our curse, wres- 
tled with death and overcame ; who has already set up 
His throne in the highest region of all, and calls upon 
every voluntary creature in his heart and spirit to do 
him homage. If I did believe in the Holy Ghost, the 
Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the 
Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body, and 
the Life Everlasting, I should feel there was a mighty, 
Divine Power working in us, to make us more com- 
pletely servants of a human king and of the Divine 
Will, than Jews and Mahometans have ever dreamed 
they could be : to make us members of a universal 
society, as Islamites wish to be ; to make our bodies 
more triumphant over death, more glorious than they 
have thought possible ; but, besides this, to make us 
sons of God, — brethren with Him who is the Son of 
God, — brethren with those who have passed into an- 
other world, who are perfectly freed from temptation 
and sin, who have inherited, not a sensual Paradise, but 
a kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and love." 



LECTURE II. 

The Relation between Christianity and Hindooism 
generally compared. mistakes concerning it. in- 
VESTIGATION op its Nature. The Twice-born Man. 
The Image op Brahm Incarnations. Sacrifice. Dan- 
gers to Christianity prom its Hindoo Side. How 
Christianity can and cannot satisfy Hindoos. 

The subject which I propose to consider in my pres- 
ent Lecture is the relation between Christianity and 
Hindooism. That such a relation exists has been felt 
by most persons, different as their theories have been 
respecting the nature or the cause of it. Christian 
writers on Hindoo antiquities have spoken of various 
traditions, which they suppose must have been derived, 
originally, from Scripture narratives, — of various Hin- 
doo doctrines which have an obvious resemblance to 
some that form part of the orthodox faith of Christen- 
dom. Infidel writers have been equally willing to no- 
tice these correspondences, and have turned them to 
their own account. If any part of the Hindoo theories 
about the origin of the world recalls the Mosaic narra- 
tive, this is evidence to them that each was equally the 
work of some early, imperfect theorist, that neither 
has any claim to Divine authority. If the similarity is 
of an historical kind, the notorious confusion of the 



178 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Hindoo records throws new doubt upon the Jewish. If, 
again, the likeness be between the great mysteries of 
the Christian faith, and the more recondite Hindoo 
speculations, what, they ask, does this show but that 
these mysteries are the results of certain trains of hu- 
man thought, and have only been attributed to a high- 
er origin, because our forefathers had not the same 
means as we have of tracing them out in the minds 
of those whom they considered ignorant and idolatrous 
as we do ? 

I do not wish to conceal any of these objections ; I 
am rather anxious to put them forward at the outset of 
my inquiry, because they concern not so much the 
conclusions to which it may lead, as the method in 
which it shall be pursued. It is no doubt true that 
Christian writers have often caught at external, superfi- 
cial indications of a resemblance between their own faith 
and that of other men, and have strained evidence to 
show how it must have been produced. And I am satis- 
fied that every such attempt to make out a case by inge- 
nious twisting of words or perversion of facts, is sorely 
punished. For the impression left upon our minds, 
supposing the likeness completely established, would 
be no more than this; that certain opinions of certain 
people upon matters of history, or upon questions of a 
very subtle and refined nature, had something to do 
with the opinions existing among ourselves, and might, 
perhaps, have proceeded from the same source. But 
the mere theories which we find in the sacred books of 
different nations, either about the past state of the world, 
or the system of it now, though they are worthy of our 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 179 

study and reflection, as hints (not always the most im- 
portant hints) towards understanding what is the radi- 
cal principle and belief of the race which adopts them, 
are not themselves identical with that principle and 
that belief. Now when this is the case with that to 
which we compare the Christian doctrines, it is far too 
likely that we shall begin to think of them in the same 
way. They will appear to us also notions and opinions 
about certain great subjects ; divine notions and opin- 
ions we may call them ; but a mere name will not 
change their character ; we shall not feel that they 
have to do with our own life and being ; we shall re- 
gard them as truths which we are to hold, not as truths 
which are to hold us, which are to give us a standing 
ground for time and for eternity. I do not wonder, 
then, nor am I altogether sorry, that those who have 
put forward this view of the relations between Hindoo- 
ism and Christianity should have been taught that their 
own weapons may be used against them. Such dis- 
coveries, instead of shaking our faith, may lead us to 
feel more diligently for the foundation of it ; to ask 
whether other nations have not given evidence that they 
too need such a foundation ; whether they are not crav- 
ing to be told what it is. 

In considering the relations between Mahometanism 
and Christianity, we did not satisfy ourselves with 
showing that certain precepts of the Koran corre- 
sponded to certain precepts of the Bible, and that the 
one was wrong when it had departed from the other. 
It seemed necessary to examine whether the main prin- 
ciple of Mahometan life, that which had given strength 



180 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to its hosts when they were most strong, be or be not 
embodied in Christianity, and whether there or here it 
has most vitality, and is most in harmony with other 
principles equally important. If we could not find that 
the great Mahometan truth was asserted more distinct- 
ly, mightily, livingly in Christianity than in Mahome- 
tanism, we did not feel that Christianity could ever be 
a substitute for Mahometanism. If that for which the 
Mahometans were content to give up their lives, were 
merely a formal proposition in our faith, we were sure 
we could not sustain ourselves against them. If any 
thing wherein we differed from them weakened this 
principle, that was so much of evidence against us. 
Nothing seemed sufficient to us but the discovery that 
the belief in an Absolute Living God actually ruling 
in the world, seeking men, not first sought by them, 
which is the root of all their convictions, is the root of 
ours ; that Christianity perishes even more completely 
than Mahometanism when this truth is forgotten ; that 
this principle has lost its power over the Mahometan 
mind, or been changed into one of the most opposite 
character, just because it wants the support of other 
kindred truths, which belong to the essence of Chris- 
tianity. 

Precisely in the same manner I would deal with the 
present subject. In my second Lecture I considered 
what were the permanent characteristics of Hindooism, 
those which had survived in all its changes, and made 
its different changes intelligible, those which had re- 
sisted all opposition, even from truths which seemed 
mightier than they and from men who were braver and 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 181 

stronger than those who upheld them. I would now 
inquire whether these characteristics have their coun- 
terparts in Christianity ; whether they enter into the 
substance of it, as they do into the substance of Hin- 
dooism ; whether the difficulties and contradictions 
which we found had grown naturally out of these con- 
victions, and yet had weakened and impaired them, 
belong also to our belief ; whether in that belief these 
Hindoo truths are or are not reconciled with those to 
which they seemed utterly hostile. I have said again 
and again, that I do not think we prove our confidence 
in the divinity of that which we confess by subjecting 
it to light tests, by arguing that this or that is not justly 
required of it. Whatever has been found necessary in 
the course of six thousand years' experience, we have 
a right to ask of that which offers itself as the faith for 
mankind. And I do not believe that it ever has shrunk, 
or ever will shrink, from any demands of this kind that 
we make upon it. 

The position of the Brahmin in reference to the rest 
of Hindoo society was that which seemed to us at 
once the most obvious outward mark of the system, 
and its essential characteristic. Here was the radical 
distinction between Hindooism and Mahometanism ; 
here was the key to its connection with Buddhism, and 
to the divergence of the latter from it. The Greeks 
under Alexander had seen that the Hindoo people were 
cast in the Brahminical mould, — they retain this mould 
under the English government in the nineteenth cen- 
tury after Christ. Whatever principle then be the 
ground of the belief in the superiority of the Brahmin 



182 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

to other men, can be no mere accident of Hindoo 
opinion, no mere notion in the sacred books ; it must 
belong to the innermost heart of the race. This prin- 
ciple we found expressed in that distinction between 
the twice-born man and other men, which is the charac- 
teristical one of the Menu code. All mere distinctions 
of occupation, even the distinctions of the four origi- 
nal classes, seemed to resolve themselves into this. 
This, therefore, had endured, though two of those 
classes had disappeared, and though the whole caste 
system had undergone great outward modifications. 
This had continued universal amidst all its local varie- 
ties. Nor was there much difficulty in ascertaining the 
ground on which the distinction rested. First of all, 
it stood on the conviction that there is in man that which 
is meant to converse with an Unseen Spiritual Being, 
that this is the vocation of the highest, wisest man, of 
him who is properly the man, who is alone able to 
guide and rule his fellows. Next, upon the considera- 
tion that this is not the natural, ordinary state of men, 
tkat this is an ignominious, degraded, animal state, out 
of which whoever is raised must be raised by different 
acts of purification, acts which are to bring him into a 
relation more or less intimate with Brahm. Thirdly, 
we saw that the idea of hereditary succession became 
involved with this, that the twice-born men became a 
distinct family, to be preserved pure from generation 
to generation. 

I repeat these observations in this place the more 
carefully, because I am anxious that you should not 
suppose I am attaching any force to a mere phrase like 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 183 

that of the twice-born man. This phrase instantly 
suggests to every Christian an idea with which all his 
life he has been familiar. Hence, it might lead us to 
one of those hasty analogies against which I have al- 
ready warned you. A person thoughtfully and ear- 
nestly considering such a subject as this for a great 
practical purpose, will be suspicious of himself when 
he finds that he is noticing a verbal correspondence ; 
he will be aware of the temptation to build an argu- 
ment upon it, and will understand how very easily he 
may be deceived by a translation from another lan- 
guage, made by men who were formed in an English 
school of thought, and were, perhaps, glad to catch at 
a rendering which would bring a lively and well-known 
image before the minds of their readers. I am quite 
willing, therefore, to forget this expression altogether, 
or to adopt any other that an Oriental scholar shall 
give me as a substitute for it, which has no resemblance 
to our own sacred dialect. It is the thing, and not the 
word, I wish you to notice ; the deep conviction which 
has wrought itself into the mind of the Hindoo, and 
which has gone along with him through every stage of 
his history. Still more earnestly would I remind you 
that it is not the words New Birth, or Second Birth, 
which characterize Christianity, but the meaning in- 
dicated by them. To realize that conviction, let us, 
as on the last occasion, look at the context of the 
Scriptures, not confining ourselves to the New Tes- 
tament, but beginning with the opening of Jewish 
history. 

I. You will remember how we traced the idea of a 



184 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Divine call through the whole of that history. I re- 
ferred to it then for the purpose of showing how every- 
thing in our faith, as in the Mahometan, rests upon the 
recognition of an act done on the part of God. But 
in that call was involved the idea of distinction, of sep- 
aration. Abraham is called out of his father's house, 
he is set apart to be tke head of a peculiar family, and 
the whole of that family have a sign of the separation 
appointed for them. When the nation is called out of 
its Egyptian bondage, not only is this sign carefully 
preserved ; not only is every institution expressly con- 
trived to keep this people distinct from other people ; 
but within the nation itself distinctions begin to be 
established. The priest is called out to the special 
work of presenting sacrifices, a whole tribe is set apart 
to the service'of the tabernacle. They are carefully 
designated ; the anointing oil is poured upon their 
heads ; garments- of honor and beauty are given them ; 
Holiness to the Lord is inscribed on the forehead of the 
high-priest. The last fact shows you how completely 
the idea not only of a separation is involved in these 
appointments, but of a separation for the very purpose 
to which the Brahmin is devoted. The priest is dedi- 
cated to the service of the Unseen Jehovah. He is to 
enter into his presence, to hold awful converse with 
Him. His separation is never for an instant spoken 
of as having another object than this. A gross animal 
taste, a disposition to honor visible things and bow be- 
fore them, is characteristic of men generally .; the elect 
people are taken from the surrounding nations, that 
they may be emancipated from this slavish tendency. 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 185 

Yet the Jew is reminded that he is liable to it like other 
men ; that he must be cut off from it ; that he must 
look upon himself as intended for intercourse with that 
which the eye cannot tell him of. The priest explains 
the end of the nation's existence. It is expressly de- 
clared that the tribe of Levi is taken instead of the first- 
born of all the families of Israel. 

Here you see one very clear indication of the 
principle which Hindoo society embodies. And this 
principle is not less characteristic of the later history 
than of the earlier. True, the people began in process 
of time to mix with the nations round about them, and 
to adopt their habits. But the wise man always warned 
them, and the fact proved, that hereby they were de- 
stroying themselves. When they forgot their cove- 
nant, when they no longer looked upon themselves as a 
chosen, separated people, above all, when their priests 
lost sight of their own vocation, and the purpose of it, 
feebleness, division, subjection to their neighbors, fol- 
lowed of course. The fact does not change in the least 
degree from one generation to another. The only 
change is in the increased knowledge which the Jews 
obtain of the reason and ground of the fact. This prog- 
ress is very remarkable. The prophets told them more 
and more distinctly, that they required to be circum- 
cised in heart ; that the separation must not be merely 
from surrounding people, but from an evil and corrup- 
tion in themselves ; that if they remembered the cove- 
nant of their God, and clave to Him, they would over- 
come, not merely the Moabites and Edomites, but a 
perverse, grovelling habit of soul, which was the c*ause 
13 



186 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

of their idolatry ; that if they forgot this covenant, 
they would sink first under the yoke of their own 
inclinations, then under that of Nineveh or Babylon. 
The more you read the Old Testament Prophets, the 
more you will see that amidst all the various circum- 
stances which surround them, amidst all the different 
methods of instruction which they are taught to adopt, 
this is their great burden. But is there not a change 
in the New Testament ? Did not our Lord destroy that 
separation which the teachers of the old time had been 
so careful to establish ? Did not his coming put Jews 
and Gentiles on a level ? We must not permit vague 
phrases of this kind to hide from us the fact, that our 
Lord, so far from obliterating the principle for which 
the Jewish nation had testified, asserted it, established 
it, expressed it for the first time in all its clearness and 
fulness. That, He said, which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
dom of heaven. In this language he gathers up the 
very meaning of the old dispensation ; shows us what 
a truth was involved in every part of it ; how every 
part had been a preparation for the full revelation of 
this truth. His coming was, no doubt, to destroy the 
barrier between Jew and Gentile ; but not till that bar- 
rier had been proved to have its justification in the very 
condition and being of man, in his relation to God and 
to the world. If there is a flesh in man, by obedience 
to which he becomes degraded, sensual, idolatrous, if 
he naturally is obedient to this flesh, and can only at- 
tain 'the rights of a spiritual creature when the Lord of 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 187 

all raises him above his nature, above himself, then we 
can understand why a whole nation should have been 
called by its position in reference to other nations, by 
its strength and weakness, righteousness and sins, by 
the experience of all its individual members, to set 
forth this mighty fact in which the eternal destinies of 
mankind must be involved. And this testimony, we 
hold, is not, and cannot be, obsolete. The Christian 
Church claims to be a body of twice-born men ; claims 
to be a witness of that mighty privilege which men 
have of conversing with the Unseen and Infinite, as 
well as a witness of the tendency which there is in man 
to be merely animal and sensual. The Christian 
Church claims a set of ministers who shall represent 
the spiritual glory and privileges of the whole body, 
shall be instruments in overcoming the low and grovel- 
ling propensities of its members. Here, then, is a prin- 
ciple which is as characteristic of our faith as it is of 
the Hindoo, which has scarcely moulded Orienta 1 soci- 
ety more than it has moulded the society of Modern 
Europe. 

II. It is impossible to separate the belief in the 
superiority of the Brahmin to other men, from the 
belief in his relation to Brahm. Technically we may 
call one a political, the other a theological idea ; prac- 
tically, the former may, for a while, survive the latter. 
But in any serious investigation of the grounds of the 
religious system they must be contemplated as identi- 
cal. Brahm is Wisdom or Light : the Brahmin is the 
reflection of this Wisdom or Light. Such a view of 
the divinity, and of the way in which man is related to 



188 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

him, is found in different modifications among all those 
people who are members of what is called the Indo- 
Germanic stock, and, perhaps, in some who do not 
belong to it. While creative Will, Command, Sover- 
eignty, Separation from man, are the attributes of 
Him whom the Arabian proclaimed to be the one God, 
Persians, Greeks, Goths, each, recognized Intelligence, 
an Intelligence communicable to man, and quickly- 
involving human worship, as the object of their rever- 
ence. But long before this reverence had taken any 
definite form among these people, hear how strongly it 
was expressed by those Hebrew sages who seemed to 
live for the assertion of the Mahometan truth : " I, 
Wisdom, dwell with Prudence, and find out knowledge 
of witty inventions. I am Understanding ; I have 
strength. By me kings reign, and princes decree 
justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, and all the 
judges of the earth. The Lord possessed me in the 
beginning of His way, before His works of old. When 
there were no depths, I was brought forth ; when there 
were no fountains abounding with water. Before the 
mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought 
forth : while as yet He had not made the earth, nor 
the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. 
When He prepared the heavens, I was there : when 
He set a compass upon the face of the deep : when He 
established the clouds above : when He strengthened 
the fountains of the deep : when He gave to the sea 
His decree, that the waters should not pass His com- 
mandment: when He appointed the fountains of the 
earth : then I was by Him as one brought up with 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 189 

Him ; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always 
before Him ; rejoicing in the habitable part of His 
earth ; and my delights were with the sons of men." 

Here we have the origin of the universe ascribed to 
Wisdom ; kings and judges are said to rule by Wis- 
dom ; Wisdom is said from the first to have had her 
delight in the sons of men. Is this an isolated passage, 
the dream of some particular writer, who had perhaps 
been instructed by Chaldeans ? On the contrary, it 
expresses the very spirit of the Jewish economy, as it 
is presented to us in the writings of all its historians 
and prophets. The wise king or the wise prophet is 
ever spoken of in Scripture as having the Divine Wis- 
dom, the Divine Word with him, nay, in him. He 
does not shrink from the pretension. In his truest, 
humblest state of mind, he feels and confesses himself 
to be only a reflection of the Divine Light, an utterer of 
the Divine Voice. He charges it as a sin upon the 
false teachers, that they speak words out of their own 
hearts. Here, again, the New Testament takes up, 
expands, and interprets the language of the Old. " In 
the beginning," says St. John, " was the Word. In 
Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. 
And the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness 
comprehended it not." Of these words, and of some 
which I have for the present omitted, St. John's Gospel 
and his First Epistle are the exposition. They declare 
what this life was which had been the light of men, 
how it was manifested, who it was that could say, " I 
am the Light of the World ; he that folio weth me shall 
not walk in darkness." 



190 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

III. But we detected a yet deeper conception be- 
neath that one of the relation of the Brahmin to 
Brahma ; we found that Brahma himself was supposed 
to be the expression or manifestation of Brahm, who 
must be thought of only as Absolute, Self-existent. 
These two ideas are inseparable. The God is said to 
have sought for a companion of his throne, and having 
considered and rejected all animal natures, at last to 
have found his one adequate image in man. This 
thought, we saw, was a pregnant one : a dualism, not 
of opposition, but of consort, might be traced through 
the whole mythology. 

Now, in the passage which I quoted from the Book 
of the Proverbs, you cannot fail to have noted the words, 
" The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His 
ways. I was with Him as one brought up with Him." 
Beneath this Wisdom, this Teacher of the Sons of Men, 
this Ruler of Princes, by whom the sea and earth have 
been formed, there is still a deeper and more unfath- 
omable essence. Is this a dream, mixing inconsistently 
with the rest of the discourse ? You cannot banish i* 
without destroying the sense of the context. Does it 
stand apart from the general course and tenor of Jew. 
ish Revelation ? You cannot understand the mos t 
striking, turning points of that Revelation, if you deter 
mine to pass by these words as incomprehensible or 
insignificant. Habitually the Jew believed that He 
whom he worshipped dwelt in the thick darkness ; no 
eye had seen Him ; it was unlawful to conceive any 
likeness of Him. But He also believed that this Lord 
had revealed Himself to Abraham, as he sat by the 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 191 

tent-door in the heat of the day on the plain of Mamre ; 
that He had been the Captain of the hosts of Israel ; 
that He had spoken to and by every holy seer. Do 
you say, " These were difficulties ; they look like con- 
, tradictions in the faith of this people ; they seem frag- 
ments from different religions, — witnesses that they 
were not, as divines pretend, the subjects of a continu- 
ous, harmonious revelation " ? I admit the difficulty ; 
I see why those who have never discovered it in them- 
selves, should suppose it must have arisen from the 
blending of two incompatible traditions. I admit, fur- 
ther, that the apparent contradiction could not be 
removed from the mind of the Jew ; that it must have 
haunted him, — sometimes have tormented him ; that 
the vision of a reconciliation will only from time to 
time have cheered him, in the fulfilment of lowly 
duties, after hours of deep sorrow, in the temple-wor- 
ship ; that a verbal reconciliation could not satisfy him, 
or any man. But a reconciliation he and the Hindoo 
both demand ; the penalty of not finding it is — Mod- 
ern Judaism, or Modern Hindooism. In that passage, 
which I purposely mutilated when I quoted it before, St. 
John says, " In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God. The 
same was in the beginning with God." He states 
broadly, and in union, the two truths which the former 
dispensation had beheld separately, each of which 
had seemed at times to stifle the other, each of which 
had again seemed necessary to the other. But he does 
not attempt to bring them together in words, until, as he 
believes, they had first been brought together in fact. 



192 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

The Word, he says, was made flesh, and dwelt among 
us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only- 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

IV. I would beg you to remark how the Evangelist 
speaks of Him here, first as a Word, then as a Son. 
The Hindoo dreamed of Light proceeding from a 
Fountain of Light ; the Greek, of a Child springing 
from a Father. Naturally, and without effort, St. John 
recognizes both conceptions ; for the Divine Wisdom 
is with him no abstraction ; the Divine Son is with him 
no material image. Hence there is no sudden transi- 
tion from the divinest part of the Christian lore to that 
which connects it with the popular faith of Hindooism. 
The Word was made Flesh. A Divine Incarnation is 
affirmed to be the great instrument for redressing the 
evils of the world. It is declared that He who had 
held converse with holy men in their hearts, He whose 
life was the light of men, had brought himself nigh to 
all, so that He could be seen with human eyes, — han- 
dled with human hands. 

I have said that the Scripture speaks of this Incar- 
nation as the means for the redress of mortal evils. 
But if we will use its language strictly, we shall make 
a closer approximation to the Hindoo apprehension : 
we shall say that it was expressly to deliver men out 
of the power of the Destroyer, to break in pieces his 
kingdom, that the Eternal Word became one with his 
creatures. Nowhere more distinctly than in Christian 
Theology is there the recognition of the fact which the 
Siva worshipper perceives ; nowhere less effort to 
make men comfortable by dissembling the fact, that 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 193 

misery and death have gotten hold of the earth ; no- 
where a more emphatic affirmation of the witness which 
the heart and consciences of men have borne every- 
where, but with special earnestness in Hindostan, that 
in them, in the region of man's inner being, is the 
fiercest debate with the evil which he sees without ; that 
there, in that region, he has to encounter it in its high- 
est form, in its most radical principle. The Gospel 
does not start with a philosophical lie ; what man by 
bitter experience has discovered to be his condition, it 
assumes to be his condition. 

V. But dare we admit the genuineness of that other 
page in the book of human experience which the Siva 
worshippers would blot out ? The Incarnation answers 
this question ; affirms the Preserver to be the Lord of 
all ; affirms Him through the whole course of His gov- 
ernment to have been upholding this earth and those 
who dwell upon it ; to have been interfering for their 
rescue. Here, in this very Incarnation, and that which 
follows from it, is the assertion of His complete domin- 
ion ; the answer to the Destroyer's claim to be in any 
sense the Creator, to have any dominion whatsoever 
over that race which has paid him such fearful hom- 
age. 

That which meets us first in the records of the life 
of the Son of Man upon earth, after He had been de- 
clared to be the Son of God, is a conflict, which no 
human eye could behold, with the Destroyer ; next, 
the testimony which He gave outwardly of the truth 
He had in that secret battle made good, by delivering 
the bodies and spirits of men out of their bondage to 



194 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

inward miseries and inward tyrants. Yet never for 
an instant did He speak of the claim which he put 
forth for the dominion of the Gracious Preserver and 
Father, as a new claim. Never when he spoke of set- 
ting up His Kingdom did he admit that He was not 
King of kings and Lord of lords before. The Jewish 
calling and economy had been asserting for generations 
the fact, that the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and 
gracious, slow to anger, and of great mercy, forgiving 
iniquity, transgressions, and sin, was the one Lord ; 
that He had taken this nation to be His, to make them 
witnesses of His righteousness and government ; that 
every one who received His Revelation of Himself, 
who submitted to Him, and trusted in Him, was there- 
by brought into a righteous state, was thereby ena- 
bled to understand the purpose of His government, 
and to receive the blessings of it. 

VI. Trust in this Being lay at the foundation of the 
life of the Jewish people. That trust involved Sac- 
rifice. They gave up themselves ; so they rose out 
of the dominion of that Spirit of self-will to which 
others were paying homage ; so they were able in their 
daily acts to resist him, and defy him, and to declare 
that neither in himself, nor in any of his innumerable 
forms, images, apparitions, had he any title to the 
obedience of God's servants. The Jew was taught 
that he was devoted, sacrificed to this Lord, who had 
chosen his nation, who preserved it from generation to 
generation, who exercised righteousness and judgment 
in all the earth. It was He who called the priest, ap- 
pointed his vocation ; to Him he was to bring the sacri- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 195 

fices for himself and his nation ; to Him, and to no 
visible things ; to Him, and to no unrighteous, hateful 
power. Sacrifice was the bond of the nation's exist- 
ence ; sacrifice the act by which man realized his place 
in it, and came to understand its privileges. The mean- 
ing, the law, the ground of sacrifice was interpreting 
itself to the conscience and reason of the true Israelite 
by every step of his discipline, by every act of obedi- 
ence, by his sin, by his repentance. More and more 
he felt it to be the law of the universe ; apart from 
which its very existence is a contradiction ; since only 
in perfect submission to the perfect Will can any crea- 
ture attain its life and freedom. He was prepared 
therefore for that announcement which the Apostles of' 
our Lord made so boldly, that the Son of the Father, 
the Deliverer of Man, had offered himself a perfect 
Sacrifice to God ; that He had accomplished this act 
by entering into all the miseries of man ; that with 
this loving, filial sacrifice, He who was perfect Love 
was well pleased ; that in it was the Atonement and 
Reconciliation of all Creation to Him, through its origi- 
nal Head ; that in the strength of it each man might 
offer himself to God as a reasonable, holy, acceptable 
Sacrifice. 

I hope I have shown in these last hints, that if the 
other portions of the faith of the Hindoos have that 
which answers to them in ours, their faith in the might 
and blessing of Sacrifice is one in which we are bound 
with all our hearts to participate. If there be any acts 
in past or present ages on which we can think with de- 
light, which we can be sure had Christ's mark upon 



196 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

them, which have wrought mightily, though in general 
secretly, for the deliverance of men from idols, from 
intellectual or spiritual plagues, here has been the root 
and spring of them. But it is just in the point of deep- 
est sympathy with this ancient people that we arrive at 
the secret of our opposition. Upon the question to 
whom the Sacrifice should be offered, whether by it we 
propitiate a Siva, or surrender ourselves in faith and 
trust to Him who cares for us and loves us ; whether it 
is to overcome the reluctance of an enemy, or is the 
offering of our own reluctant wills to a Father in the 
name of one who has presented and is ever presenting 
His own filial and complete Sacrifice, — upon this 
issue, let us understand it well, our controversy with 
Hindooism turns. 

The idea of a Kehama obtaining a power from his 
gods which they cannot afterwards resist to curse and 
plague his fellow-men, is involved in the one doctrine, 
and is ready at any moment to come forth in a form of 
terrific wickedness, in the likeness of some Man-God. 
The Agony of the Garden, the spirit of the 22d Psalm, 
the Cross of Him. who became nothing that the Power, 
and Grace, and Wisdom of God might through Him 
shine forth upon all creatures ; here we see the Chris- 
tian Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the God-Man. This 
spirit of Sacrifice He promises to all who are made 
the Sons of God in Him. Every thing then depends 
in our dealings with the Hindoos — let me add, 
every thing in our dealings with ourselves — upon the 
degree in which we grasp this distinction, or lose sight 
of it. I showed you that we are open to all Mahome- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 197 

tan temptations. So are we to all Hindoo temptations. 
We may exalt a priestly caste, as if it were set up to 
make the rest of men Sudras ; we may dwell upon 
the privilege of holding intercourse with the Divine 
Being, till we sink into self-worshippers ; we may re- 
venge ourselves for this abstract idolatry by plunging 
into outward idolatry ; we may at last bow down be- 
fore Siva, who we should have known was in all these 
ways drawing us into his worship, since every act of 
pride, spiritual, intellectual, sensual, is a mystery of his 
worship. 

These dangers have discovered themselves in former 
periods of the world ; seeing that they appertain to 
human nature, we may be as liable to them as those 
who lived in any country or age. Is it an escape from 
them to deny the existence of a priesthood, to say that 
intercourse with heaven is a dream, to scoff at all pop- 
ular feelings, to maintain that the conscience of evil is 
nothing, that sacrifices are a mockery ? Or rather is 
the escape from them to maintain that a priesthood ex- 
ists for the purpose of raising men above animal degra- 
dation, as a witness of the great rights of humanity ; 
that, because intercourse with heaven was intended for 
the spirit of man, and has been made possible for men, 
therefore lowliness and self-abasement are our most 
proper and reasonable conditions ; that poor and rich, 
priests and Sudras, have been alike looked upon, sym- 
pathized with, redeemed, raised to human privileges 
by Him who took the nature of all ; that every man 
may be delivered from an evil conscience, that he may 
renounce and scorn the authority of the evil spirit, that 



198 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

he may offer himself in Christ's name to God ? This 
is the alternative for India and for England. In other 
words, the question is, whether we hold a system of 
opinions or a revelation from God ? All Brahminical 
acts, services, sacraments, imply an effort or scheme 
on the part of the creature to raise himself to God. 
All Christian acts, services, sacraments, imply that 
God has sought for the creature that He might raise 
him to Himself. The differences in our thoughts of 
God, of the priest, of the sacrifice, all go back to this 
primary difference. When we get into the region of 
conceptions and speculations, all our views of that 
which is divine will be fragmentary ; some of them 
will be very dark, because they are derived from our 
own experience ; either these become predominant, or 
in seeking to rid ourselves of them we deny facts and 
extinguish great portions of our own „being. To be- 
lieve really, practically, that God is light and in Him 
is no darkness at all, we must believe that He has 
caused this light to arise and shine ; we must seek to 
walk in it, and to see all things by it. 

In my second Lecture, I referred to the condition 
of the Britons, who had parted with their original faith 
and had received Roman civilization, when they were 
no longer protected by Roman arms. I said the ex- 
ample was one which the statesmen of British India 
would do well to ponder. To abolish human sacrifices 
is good ; but a blank will be left in the nation's heart 
even by the loss of such practices as these, which must 
be filled up, or we shall impoverish those whom we 
seek to reform. But there is another, sadder side of 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 199 

this history, one which refers not to the conquered, but 
to the conquerors. Britain uttered her groan because 
Rome could no longer send forth her legions. The 
hundred hands which had been stretched from east to 
west, from north to south, were palsied ; for the giant 
who moved them had become a child. And whence 
came this decay of strength ? All the signs of it still 
belonged to Rome. From the city of Jerusalem to the 
city of York she had traversed the earth with her roads ; 
within her own walls were the mightiest trophies of art 
over nature. Her history told by what wonderful 
agencies human and natural, by how evidently divine 
an ordinance, her glory had been achieved. And to 
the gloss of civilization had been added the gloss of 
Christianity. The Emperor had believed, when other 
help was failing, that in the might of the Cross he might 
still conquer. The sign was indeed there, but it was 
marked upon the standard, not written upon the hearts, 
of those rulers of the world. They saw not what it 
meant ; how it interpreted and crowned all that had 
been great in their history hitherto ; how it separated 
the real great from the real little ; how it sanctified all 
those feelings of obedience, duty, reverence for unseen 
law, self-devotion, by which the city had risen from 
nothing ; how it poured contempt upon dominion, ex- 
cept as an instrument by which the highest might serve 
the lowest, — upon glory, except as it grew out of hu- 
miliation, and was the exaltation of man above himself. 
The civilized Christian Roman had lost the heart, the 
reverence, the faith, which belonged to his rude Pagan 



200 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

ancestors ; that Christianity and civilization might be 
victorious, the miserable patrons of both were swept 
away. 

If it is so with us ; if our civilization merely consists 
in those outward conveniences and mechanical inven- 
tions which are the fruits of it, assuredly we shall 
impart but that which we have ; we shall communicate 
only our external polish to the nations which we rule ; 
their inward condition under our hands will become 
less strong, less sound, than it was before. If our be- 
lief in Christianity floats upon the surface of our minds, 
just keeps itself alive by a few phrases and conventions 
in the multitude of our pursuits, if it offers no greater 
evidence of its vitality than the debates and controver- 
sies which it engenders, assuredly we cannot present 
it to the Hindoo with the slighest hope that he will 
receive it in exchange for a faith which, be it good or 
evil, has governed his life. Only if our cultivation be 
of that kind which is truly human, which delights to 
discern the essential humanity of each nation, to honor 
it, to sympathize with it, shall we understand that 
which is peculiar in our subjects, or reform that which 
is corrupt in them. Only if we have received the 
Gospel as the answer from heaven to inward perplexi- 
ties which we have a thousand times tried to stifle, but 
could not, only if we have learnt that these perplexi- 
ties are the groans of the human spirit within us crying 
for deliverance, can we with honest confidence speak 
to that spirit, in whatever region it dwells, in whatever 
language, clear or inarticulate, it utters its voice, as 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 201 

one spake to it of old, — " Say not, Who shall ascend 
up into heaven ? that is, to bring Christ down ; or, 
Who shall descend into the deep ? that is, to bring 
Christ again from the dead : for lo ! the word is nigh 
thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, even the word of 
faith which we preach." 



14 



LECTURE III. 

How this Relation should be detected. The Descent 
of the Spirit. Relation of the Christian Church 
to the Jewish. Supposed Analogy to the Relations 
of Buddhism w^ith Brahminism. The Resemblances 
and Difference between Christianity and Buddhism. 
The Buddhist Side of Christianity threatening its 
Existence. How Christians may speak to Buddhists 
elsewhere, especially in china. 

That Buddha and Brahm are words of cognate if 
not of the same signification ; that Buddhism is never- 
theless essentially opposed to Brahminism, seeing that 
it denies the existence of a priestly caste ; that the 
Buddhists are scattered over many lands, and have 
adopted various forms of belief and opinion ; that their 
universal characteristic is reverence for the human 
intellect, which they think of as one, though diffused 
through many persons, and as having its central mani- 
festation in the Lama ; that Buddhism exists in China 
beside two other forms of opinion with which it does 
not combine, — I have explained in my third Lecture 
of the First Part. It is now our business to inquire 
whether this system has any or what affinities with 
Christianity. If the inquiry is conducted fairly, it must 
satisfy certain conditions. The resemblance which we 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 203 

detect must be, not in the superficial accidental parts of 
either faith, but in their radical and essential character- 
istics ; these must not be assumed by the inquirer on 
his own authority, but must have some clear voucher 
that they are recognized as radical and essential char- 
acteristics by Buddhists and Christians respectively; 
the likeness must not be to that side of Buddhism 
which coincides with Hindooism, — otherwise we shall , 
only be repeating the last Lecture, — but to the oppo- 
site side. 

The festival of Whitsuntide is observed in all parts 
of Christendom ; here in England, among the Protes- 
tants in the North of Europe, by the Romanists in the 
South, by Greeks and Armenians, by the descendants 
of English, French, and Spanish settlers in North and 
South America. It is felt by all these to commemorate 
a great event, the event which marks the establishment 
of the Christian Church in the world. They derive 
their notion of this event from the record of it in the 
second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. There 
we are told, that on a certain day, which had long been 
kept as a festival' day among the Jews, numbers of 
them were gathered from various countries of Asia, 
Africa, and Europe, in the city of Jerusalem. In that 
city dwelt a body of priests, divinely called, as its in- 
habitants believed, to this office, members of a priestly 
family. There were also authorized doctors and inter- 
preters of the law, whose words were received by the 
great mass of the people as oracles. On the day of 
Pentecost, says the writer of the Acts, a great body of 
the inhabitants of the city, and of the strangers from 



204 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

other lands, were drawn to a place near the temple, 
because they were told that a set of men, not priests, 
not doctors of the law, but inhabitants of the most 
despised part of Palestine, themselves of the lowest 
caste, Galilean fishermen, were speaking in different 
tongues the wonderful works of God. This power the 
Scripture declares was given them from on high. The 
Spirit of God had descended upon them ; they spake 
with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 
To the body thus endued it is said a multitude joined 
themselves. They were regarded with more and more 
jealousy by the priests and doctors of the Jews. But 
they spread themselves through Palestine ; they went 
into other lands. Everywhere, they declared that 
they came in the power of the Spirit, who had thus 
broken down the barriers of language and race ; every- 
where they said that this Spirit would be given to 
those who believed their message. 

Are we to conclude from this story that the Christian 
faith broke loose from the Jewish faith, as Buddhism 
broke loose from Brahminism ; that in each case there 
was a vehement reaction against caste, narrowness, and 
local boundaries ; that in each case this reaction was 
associated with the recognition of a spirit dwelling in 
men ? There may be much plausibility in such a 
notion ; for many reasons it would commend itself to 
certain modern philosophers. Only they would say, 
" In order to make out this resemblance, it is neces- 
sary to divest the Scriptural story of its halo of mystery 
and marvel. Take it as it stands, and all you learn 
from it is, that on a certain occasion a strange phe- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 205 

nomenon was seen, unlike any that had previously 
occurred, or was to occur again ; at variance with the 
constitution of man and the dealings of his Creator. 
In that form it offers only a seeming analogy to the 
Buddhist doctrine ; seeing that the latter assumes the 
presence of a divine and diffusive spirit to be the prop- 
er characteristic of humanity, at least in its noblest 
state, and that on this ground it oversets the caste 
principle, — not for a particular emergency, but alto- 
gether. If, however, you are inclined to admit that 
this is the confused narrative of a remarkable epoch in 
Jewish history (and, indeed, in the world's history), 
when there was awakened in the nation, or in a part 
of it, the consciousness, previously slumbering, of a 
capacity in men generally for that knowledge which 
had been confined to the priests, — a narrative sur- 
rounded, as all Hebrew narratives are, with a divine 
machinery, — we will admit that you have established 
your case." 

I submit that one part of this statement is quite in- 
correct. If I read the story as it stands, I shall not 
merely be told that a certain event happened at a cer- 
tain time and in a certain place ; I shall be told that 
this event was the fulfilment of a promise made to the 
fathers of the Jewish nation ; I shall be told that it was 
intended for those of that generation, and for their 
children. These assertions, it will be remembered, 
are very prominent in the discourse which the writer 
of the Acts of the Apostles attributes to St. Peter. 
One therefore who believes his statement cannot look 
upon this descent of the Spirit, with all that was im- 



206 



THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 



plied in the circumstances of it, as violating the laws 
of the human constitution, as an exception in the plan 
of the Creator. He must look upon it as expounding 
that constitution, as carrying out that plan. But on 
what grounds, it will be asked, can it be alleged that 
the principles set forth in the Jewish Scriptures and the 
Jewish economy were asserted and realized by a trans- 
action which seems to destroy the exclusive hierarchy, 
ultimately the exclusive national limitation, which lie" 
at the root of them ? The answer to this question will, 
I believe, show that the affinities of Christianity with 
Buddhism are much closer and more extensive than 
they would be on the hypothesis of the former being a 
rebellion against Judaism ; on the other hand, will ex- 
plain wherein the difference between them consists, 
and what that " miraculous halo," which is imputed to 
the Scripture narrative, has to do with it. 

We turn to the earliest of the Jewish records, and 
we find it declared that God made man in his own 
image, and gave him dominion over alt the other crea- 
tures he had formed. Before a word has been said 
about the difference of one people from another, here 
is a broad fundamental assertion respecting man as 
man. Perhaps you will say, " Yes ; but this is set at 
naught by one which immediately follows it ; the fall 
of Adam is the real, though the creation of man may 
be the nominal, beginning of the history." As we are 
examining these records to find what they actually 
affirm, I consider the simplest, nay, the only honest 
method, is to take them as beginning where they seem 
to begin, not to assume a starting-point of our own. It 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 207 

will then be seen more clearly whether they have a 
connection with each other, or are only a collection of 
Sibylline leaves ; whereas, if we insist that the Divine 
drama opens at a certain chapter, and that all which 
precedes is prologue, we do not find the connection, 
but make it. The arrangements of divines may de- 
mand such violence upon the text ; but I do not think 
it is ever justified by the conscience of simple and 
devout Christians. I believe they would be shocked to 
the last degree if you insisted in plain language upon 
their believing that the constitution of God was nulli- 
fied, destroyed, or even at all affected, by the evil acts 
of man. Undoubtedly, there is the fullest, most imme- 
diate recognition of the fact that evil entered into the 
world. There is no tampering with experience, no 
attempt to represent the universe as something else 
than it is, in order to make it accord with the account 
of its origin. There is no hint of a golden age, during 
which sin and death were not upon the earth. We 
are told that the very first man forgot that he was made 
in the image of God ; yielded to the temptation of 
an inferior creature ; came under death. He denied 
the law after which he was created. And each of his 
descendants is shown to have the same propensity to 
obey that which he was meant to rule ; to disbelieve in 
Him whom he was meant to obey. But neither the 
first man nor any of his successors could make this 
degradation and disobedience any thing else than an 
anomaly and a contradiction. The worst man in 
Scripture is never represented as evil in any other 
sense than because he fights against the law under 



208 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

which he exists, and of which his very transgression is 
the continual witness. And therefore in the Bible God 
is ever represented as addressing Himself to the crea- 
ture whom He had formed, as awakening in him by 
His voice a consciousness of his right condition. 

He is represented as speaking thus to Adam when 
he was hiding himself from His presence ; as speaking 
thus to Cain when he was meditating his crime, and 
when he had committed it. In each case it is assumed 
that the creature addressed stood in a direct relation to 
the Creator, however he might be denying it and de- 
termining to shut himself out from it. And I need 
scarcely remind you, that he is treated, after the fall 
as well as before it, as still intended to have dominion 
over the earth and the animals upon it. The ground 
is cursed for his sake : in the sweat of his brow he 
must till it ; but he does till it, — he does subdue it. 
He is continually disposed to treat it as his master, but 
he is compelled to act as if it were his slave, — com- 
pelled at the same time to remember that its power of 
producing nourishment for him depends not upon him- 
self, but upon an Unseen Will, which he is ever in- 
clined to lose sight of. The punishment of the race 
when lust and violence had spread over it, the preser- 
vation of it in a family, the blessing under which the 
sons of Noah go forth to replenish the earth and to 
subdue it, the confusion of their purpose of dwelling 
together in one plain when they were meant to people 
the earth, bear witness to the same principle. Man, 
the race of Man, is treated as formed in the image of 
God, as intended for rule over the creatures. 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 209 

Now if this be the case with respect to the records 
of the period preceding the Call of Abraham, those 
which follow can only be understood on the same prin- 
ciple. The history of the chosen people does not 
record an outrage upon mankind for the sake of one 
portion of it ; it is the history of men taken out of 
darkness into the light, made conscious of their own 
state, as created in the image of God and meant to 
have dominion over 1 the earth. A Mesopotamian shep- 
herd is called the friend of God, — in him all the 
families of the earth are to be blessed. Out of his 
family grows a nation. It is a witness to all nations 
against the separate idolatrous worship which is divid- 
ing them. Its members are taught to believe that God 
Himself is their King, — the Unseen God of all the 
earth. They are not in some unnatural condition be- 
cause they are taken under His government ; their 
lives are simple, natural, orderly, in proportion as they 
remember it ; confused and irregular when they forget 
it. As the history of the nation goes on, there are con- 
tinually new discoveries of evil tendencies, of an evil 
nature, in the members of it. They are not different 
from the rest of the world ; they are equally idolatrous, 
equally selfish, equally corrupt. Where then is their 
advantage ? The Lord of All has revealed Himself to 
them ; He has taken them into covenant ; they may 
trust Him. In trusting Him they rise above these 
selfish and idolatrous tendencies, — they become truly 
men. The Jewish Prophet, when he is most over- 
whelmed with his own evil and with the evil of his 
nation, obtains most apprehension of the truth that God 



210 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

will exhibit his perfect Image to men, in a Man, and 
will so confound all the images they have made. Ex- 
cept such an Image were really presented to them in a 
Man, — except it were really shown to be true that 
Man was made in the Image of God, and had domin- 
ion over the creatures, and that Death and Evil were 
not his masters, the visions of Jewish seers were delu- 
sions. But St. Peter, when he spoke to the Jews on the 
day of Pentecost, was firmly assured that a Man had 
appeared in the world who was the perfect Image of 
the Unseen God. He believed that this Person had 
been declared in the waters of baptism to be the Son 
of God ; that the Spirit of God had descended upon 
Him ; that in the strength of that Spirit he had exer- 
cised dominion over the powers of nature, over man's 
spiritual enemies ; had passed through death, had as- 
cended to the right hand of His Father. That He 
should give His Spirit to men, to make them the sons 
of God in Him ; to restore them to God's Image ; to 
give them power over the earth ; to constitute them 
the masters, and not the subjects of visible things ; — 
this seemed to him the right and reasonable fulfilment 
of express promises which were contained in the Jew- 
ish Scriptures, and of all their meaning. 

With equal certainty he said, that the promise 
would be to them and to their children. He was sure 
that the Spirit of God had taken possession of the pow- 
ers, and energies, and speech of men. He was sure 
that in yielding to that Spirit he was obeying no strange, 
unnatural impulse, but was submitting to his proper 
guide and teacher, to the Author of all order, and 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 211 

peace, and unity. More than this, perhaps, he may 
not have perceived. To see in this gift the witness for 
a great human fellowship, to see all that it implied re- 
specting man's creation and his redemption, was per- 
haps reserved, more perfectly, for another Apostle. 
Through intense personal humiliation and suffering did 
the Apostle Paul learn that Christ, by His death, and 
resurrection, and ascension, had justified man before 
God ; that the Spirit of God was given, not only as the 
fulfilment of all promises which had been made to the 
fathers of the Jewish nation, but as the fulfilment of the 
original law of his creation, when He made all things 
in Christ Jesus, with the intent of finally gathering 
them all together in Him. In his Epistles we find him 
brought into contact with men of different habits, phi- 
losophies, and educations. The old mythologies had 
prepared them very readily to recognize an inspiration 
from God. The sages very readily recognized the 
worth of the individual soul in man ; but the inspiration 
which the first admitted was sudden and casual, the 
honor which the other paid to the soul was solitary, 
exclusive, self-exalting. He spoke of a Spirit of God 
as given to dwell continually in man ; to be the source 
in him of all knowledge, faith, love ; the strength for 
all ordinary toils, the comforter in all sorrows, the 
power of exploring the unseen and the future. He 
spoke of this Spirit as calling forth a spirit in man, in 
the individual man, which lifts him above himself, which 
he cannot call his own, which belongs to him as the 
child of God, the member of a universal family, — 
" the spirit of man which is in him." 



212 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

That profound feeling of reverence for the human 
spirit, then, which we have discovered in the Buddhist, 
his belief in the mighty capacities of this spirit, his de- 
termination to recognize these capacities as belonging to 
the race, not to some one section or class of it, his as- 
surance that the spirit in man cannot be circumscribed 
by the limits of time or space, or by the measures and 
conditions of individual feeling and consciousness, his 
conviction that this human spirit must, in some myste- 
rious manner, be divine, has its full justification in 
Christianity. And every subordinate idea which has 
grown out of these in the mind of the Buddhist has that 
which answers to it in the Gospel. He believes that it 
is the privilege of the divine man to contemplate the 
Divinity in His purity. The highest view which St. 
Paul takes of the privileges of Christian men, in conse- 
quence of the gift which had been bestowed upon 
them, is that they might know God ; his most earnest 
prayer, that they might increase in this knowledge. 
The Buddhist believes that, in order to the attainment 
of such knowledge, the mind must be separated from 
outward, sensual things. Sanctification, the deliver- 
ance of the heart and mind from earthly, temporal in- 
fluences, that they may enter into the enjoyment of 
that which is unseen and eternal, is the very work 
which the writers of the New Testament, with one ac- 
cord, attribute to the Holy Spirit who had been given 
them. The Buddhist, however, feeling that he must, 
in some way, study the universe, and account for the 
facts which he observes in it, was led to perceive the 
necessity of a power which originates or begets, a ca- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 213 

pacity which receives, a bond which unites them. The 
Scriptures, too, suppose a power which creates, a pow- 
er in the creature which receives ; the Scriptures con- 
template the union and co-working of these powers as 
the condition of health in all that exists ; they show how 
all destruction in the human, voluntary creature has 
come from his will not yielding itself to the divine, 
creating, inspiring Will ; how all restoration comes 
from their being again brought into accordance. They 
speak of the deepest ground of all things being the 
awful union of the Father with the Son in the Spirit. 

Again, we heard of holy men appearing as benefac- 
tors of different portions of the globe ; their footsteps 
traced upon earth, yet their home seeming to be some- 
where else. What they are is known chiefly by what 
they have done ; their acts are palpable ; a mystery 
hangs about themselves. They are called Buddhas ; 
though they appear in places and times far apart, the 
same wisdom, the same power, dwells in them all ; 
they must be the wisdom and power of Buddha ; they 
can belong to no other. Even thus do Christians speak 
of those who in far-off ages, in various latitudes, have 
shed light into the hearts of men, have cheered the 
poor in the midst of their sore trials with help for the 
present, hope for the future, have restrained triumphant 
evil, and labored that righteousness and truth might 
flourish. These we hold to be all partakers of the self- 
same Spirit ; in their words and acts they manifest its 
presence ; care not to be great in themselves, but do 
homage to a mysterious greatness, from which all that 
seems such in themselves is derived ; show that they 



214 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

have their work on earth, their citizenship in the heav- 
ens. Once more, the Buddhist affirms that there must 
be some person, and that a human person, in whom 
the perfect wisdom resides. He need not in his earth- 
ly appearance be glorious ; he may wear the form of a 
child ; but the Power must be within, and must so re- 
veal itself that men shall see the Divine Priest is there. 
Even thus is it the clearest, most invariable proclama- 
tion in the Gospel, that each man, in his best, purest 
estate, does but utter some portion of the Divine Mind, 
does but exhibit some one partial image of the Divine 
Character ; that there is one perfect Utterance of that 
voice, one perfect image of that substance, one in 
whom the Fulness pleased to dwell, one who humbled 
Himself to the cradle of Bethlehem, to the Cross of 
Calvary ; who in that cradle, and on that Cross, showed 
forth the Divine glory : and who, because He humbled 
Himself, has been exalted to be the High-Priest of our 
race for ever. 

But as we have seen this relation between Buddhism 
and Christianity coming out before us with increasing 
brightness, we must, I think, have become also more 
and more conscious of some difference, which, what- 
ever it be, is a deep and radical one. The philosophi- 
cal objectors told us that if we could separate the story 
of Pentecost from its " mythical " accidents, the sound 
of the rushing mighty wind, the cloven tongues, the 
notion of a particular endowment bestowed by Jesus 
Christ at that particular moment on His disciples, we 
should arrive at an intelligible result, which might throw 
some light upon Buddhist and other history. I com- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 215 

plained of this statement so far as it represents the 
events of that day as isolated, as inconsistent with prin- 
ciples recognized in the Jewish economy, as importing 
that the indwelling of a Spirit in man is not implied in 
his original constitution. Subject to these remarks, I 
now admit that they are right in looking upon these 
miraculous circumstances as indicative of the differ- 
ence between the Scriptural and the Buddhist concep- 
tion of the spiritual endowments of human creatures. 
The Buddhist starts from the human ground ; assumes 
the existence or possibility of certain qualities and at- 
tributes of a divine nature in man ; supposes the man, 
in virtue of these, to hold intercourse with the Divinity.. 
The Scripture starts from the divine ground ; assumes 
that man according to his constitution is nothing but 
an image ; denies that he can originate any thing ; sets 
forth a revelation of his Creator to him as the founda- 
tion of his knowledge, — of his life; represents all 
faculties, powers, energies of the creature as gifts of 
the Creator. Upon this difference every other de- 
pends. If the first view be the right one, there can, 
of course, be no divine manifestation, for there is 
nothing to manifest. The Creator does not witness to 
men by visible signs that He is the Author of these 
gifts, for He is not the Author of them, or He does not 
design to make them know that He is. If the other 
view be true, these (so-called) miracles, these exercises 
of power, these signs of a' Presence, are precisely the 
methods which commend themselves to the conscience 
and reason of mankind as the most fitted — I had 
nearly said as the only possible — witnesses of a truth, 



216 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

which, when it has been once testified of in this way, 
can hereafter be held as certain and abiding though 
there be no startling signs of it at all. 

Now, as Buddhism and Christianity are the respec- 
tive exemplifications of these two methods, it may be 
well to consider the practical results of each. You 
will see, I trust, my object. I do not desire to make 
out a charge against Buddhism on the ground of its 
moral deficiencies ; but I want to ascertain how far 
these deficiencies are or are not owing to this charac- 
teristical feature of it, that, more than any other system 
the world has ever seen, it makes the belief of a Divine 
power working in man its ground, and ascends from 
that ground to any apprehension it may entertain 
respecting the Divinity Himself. 

I. One leading contrast offers itself instantly to our 
notice. The Buddhist believes that a Divine wisdom 
and power dwells, or may dwell, in human beings, and 
that its dwelling constitutes them heroic spirits, — 
saintly men. The New Testament begins with teach- 
ing us ivhat kind of Spirit this must be ; what manner 
of Being He is from whom this Spirit proceeds ; what 
must be the manner of His working in creatures who 
submit to His government. It speaks of the Spirit of 
Him who had declared Himself for ages to the Jews 
as the God of Truth and Righteousness ; it speaks of 
the Spirit of Him who gave His Son for men. It sets 
forth the character of this Spirit by His life, in whom 
it is said to have dwelt without measure. If Holiness 
was more characteristic of Him than power, the Spirit 
of holiness is the name by which we are taught to 






RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 217 

express it most uniformly and perfectly. If meekness, 
humility, gentleness, were the essential qualities of His 
life, the Spirit is known as the Spirit of meekness, 
humility, gentleness : these are declared to be the 
fruits of its operations. If His whole life was an act 
of self-sacrifice, His Spirit is set forth as the power 
whereby man is able to offer himself a sacrifice. If 
Love was the source and end of His sacrifice, it is the 
Spirit of Love which He promises to those who obey 
Him. Not that these assertions in the least interfere 
with the other equally prominent one, that He is the 
Spirit of Truth and Knowledge ; that all powers and 
exercises of mind, and their direction, are from Him. 
No one brings out that assertion more clearly than St. 
Paul ; but he winds up the enumeration of gifts and 
powers in these words : " And yet I show you a more 
excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of 
men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become 
as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." Love is 
in his teaching, as in his life, the highest manifestation 
of the presence of the Spirit, because God, from whom 
it proceeds, is Love. 

II. All this difference, you see, is grounded upon 
the difference between the naked idea of a Spirit dwell- 
ing in man and identical with himself, and the idea of 
Him as given to men by the Eternal God through His 
Son. Look now at the difference as to another point, 
the estimate of human creatures. To the Buddhist 
those whom he believes thus endowed necessarily be- 
come gods ; they can be nothing else. And thus, he 
who starts with the rejection of an hereditary priest- 
15 



218 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

hood as an intolerable yoke, because men, as men, 
have the capacity of seeing God and worshipping Him, 
ends by becoming the poor servant and tool of a priest- 
hood. All who can exhibit the intellectual power 
which he feels is of right his, and yet which he is 
conscious that he does not actually possess, must be 
objects of his obedience and his worship. He has no 
standard with which he can compare what they are 
and what they do ; he is sure that there must be some 
who enjoy intercourse with the unseen world; they 
cannot tell him what the intercourse means, what the 
result of it is, how he can be the better for it. They 
seem to say, some of them actually say, and wish him 
to understand that at all events they are marking out a 
ne plus ultra to his inquiries, " Beyond us lies a void 
of Nothingness." Into that void the listening disciple 
has no temptation to enter. What can he do but 
accept these finite temporary priests as the best substi- 
tutes for the Infinite which he longs for and yet shrinks 
from ? They at least keep alive the appetite, they 
save him from utter despair. Such is the condition of 
those who can only contemplate the Spirit which they 
feel is meant for man as in man. The Christian is 
taught to think of this Spirit as in God, as coming 
forth from Him. He is taught that he may ask God 
continually for the quickening and renewing of it in 
himself, and in all the family to which he belongs. 
He is told that when the Comforter comes He shall 
convince the world of Sin, of Righteousness, of Judg- 
ment ; that He shall not become identical with the man 
himself ; but shall show him his evil ; shall raise him 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 219 

out of that evil into a Righteousness which is above him, 
which is in one who is gone to the Father ; shall give 
him the continual assurance of a final separation be- 
tween that which is true and that which is false. 

III. Thus the promise of the Spirit is the promise 
to a man of a power to overlook his own mind, to judge 
its acts and movements, to know what in it requires to 
be cut off, what is wrought in God. Every human 
heart is to be the subject of it ; no creature belonging 
to the race for which Christ died, is meant to be de- 
frauded of this mighty illumination. But no one who 
receives it can pretend to be thereby exalted above his 
fellows ; his knowledge is the knowledge of his own 
individual abasement ; of that glory which he shares 
with his kind in Christ. And therefore the Scripture, 
in strict conformity with this idea, represents all intel- 
lectual gifts as bestowed, not to raise one man above 
another, but simply that men may be enabled to serve 
each other. The highest of all is the servant of all. 
He who holds his gifts under this condition, and con- 
fesses his unfitness for the use of them, is a fellow- 
worker with the Divine Spirit. He is doing that which 
he was sent here to do. He who uses them for any 
other end, who holds them on any other condition, 
practically disowns the blessing and its Author. The 
priest and the prophet come under this rule. They 
especially are to look upon themselves as called by 
Him who is the deliverer of men out of their confusions 
and darkness, to an office under Him, as endowed with 
powers by Him to fulfil this office. So far as the priest 
or the prophet looks upon all the ability he possesses as 



220 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

a gift, the object of which is determined by the charac- 
ter of the giver, and the nature of His work, so far he 
is a true priest and true prophet ; assuming his ability 
as his property, he becomes a false priest, a false 
prophet ; in the language of Scripture a wolf, and not 
a shepherd, a destroyer of men, not their deliverer. 

IV. But the conception of the Lama supplies us 
with the most perfect illustration of the difference I am 
endeavoring to point out. In him is gathered up that 
spirit of humanity which the Buddhist worships, and 
from which he deduces his divinity. The Christian 
affirms that He in whom the priesthood of the universe 
rests is the eternal Son of God, that He took human 
nature, united it to God, endued it with that Spirit which 
dwelt without measure in Himself. He, they declare, 
is the Head of many members, through each of which, 
so long as it abides in Him, the same lifeblood is 
transmitted. The former notion, grounded upon a 
true and deep feeling that there must be a centre or 
that there can be no fellowship, assumes the centre 
anywhere, — in a child or old man, — and demands 
implicit faith that there all intelligence rests. The 
other, starting from the fact that humanity has a centre 
above itself, declares how He who claimed to be this 
centre, in poverty, weakness, contempt, made good his 
title, by proving that He could deliver the spirit of 
man out of its fetters, that in owning Him to be its 
. Lord it attained the freedom it was sighing for. The 
one notion glorifying the intellect and spirit of man, 
insists upon their doing homage to the meanest object 
which they create for themselves to worship ; the other, 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 221 

humbling the intellect and spirit of man before one 
who has established his right to be their master, offers 
them an expansion and exaltation of which the knowl- 
edge and love of an absolute and perfect Being are the 
only limits. 

V. Thus the society of the Buddhist has no bond 
except the existence of something mysterious in the 
creatures who belong to it ; feeling this to be insuf- 
ficient, he invents an external supremacy, and endues it 
with attributes which he knows it does not possess ; he 
makes a lie, and the lie avails him nothing, for the 
three hundred millions which own it compose only a 
mass of atoms without any principle of cohesion, though 
they are ever seeking one. The Christian Ecclesia 
confesses by its very name that its existence has its 
ground in the call of an Almighty Being ; that it stands 
only by His will ; that it is distinguished from a divided 
world to be a witness of that true glory which man 
possesses when he looks upward, not downwards, to a 
Master, not to himself; that, having such a call and 
being such a witness, it is baptized with a Spirit of 
power, and truth, and love, who by it would bring all 
men into the divine fellowship which embraces all peo- 
ples, tongues, kindreds, — from which no one can, ex- 
cept by an act of self-will, be excluded. 

VI. I might perhaps leave the comparison here 
drawn to work its way upon the consciences and hearts 
of all who love truth and freedom and their kind, 
in deed more than in word. But the subject is so tran- 

- scendently important at this time, that I must present 
it still in one or two other lights. The first is this. 



222 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Buddhism, you see, necessarily excludes Mahometan- 
ism and Hindooism. It is the direct contradiction of 
the former ; Mahometanism basing the universe upon 
the distinctness and absoluteness of God. Its antipa- 
thy to the second is the great fact of its history, the 
explanation of its existence. It denies the reality of 
that distinction which is involved in the doctrine of the 
twice-born man, as opposed to the ordinary man. And 
now we find it cannot sustain those pretensions to 
spirituality, on account of which it is at war with the 
unspiritual Mahometan, or that pretension to humanity 
and freedom from priestcraft, on account of which it 
is at war with the exclusive Brahmin. It sets their 
ideas at naught ; it utterly fails in realizing its own. 
But we have been led to think that ideas which have 
exercised such a sway over multitudes of human be- 
ings from generation to generation, must be realized in 
some way. Our philosophers have taught us to pay this 
homage to the thoughts of our fellow-men ; we bless 
them for the lesson ; we are ashamed of not having 
learnt it sooner, of not having rather imparted it to 
them. I beseech you seriously to ponder this question. 
How may these ideas be realized ? How may they 
be reconciled ? And if you should, after much think- 
ing, find that this ancient Revelation, which you were 
going to cast aside as one of the false and worn-out 
systems of the world, supplies that realization and 
reconciliation, — supplies them because it is a revela- 
tion, — on that ground, and no other, — then be sure 
that if you do cast it aside, or wish to prove it some- 
thing else than a revelation, the reason is not that you 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 223 

care for what is expansive and comprehensive, that 
you hate what is formal and narrow ; this is not 
any longer the ground of your opposition. "Will you 
then with great earnestness ask yourselves what it is ? 
VII. Perhaps, however, we have been speaking 
only of a verbal reconciliation ; you want one which 
shall be practical ; one which may bear to be tried on 
a great scale. Let us see then whether the case of 
China, a country which you will allow to be practical 
at least in its aim, to offer quite sufficient room for a 
large experiment, may not supply what you require. 
If you did hear of a people which had for ages the 
strongest conviction that the authority of the Father 
was the one foundation of society, but had never been 
able to connect this conviction with the acknowledg- 
ment of any thing mysterious and divine ; of a society 
which for ages had not been able to prevent a certain 
body of its subjects from dreaming that there is a mys- 
terious and divine Word or Reason speaking to the 
wise man, out of which dream, however, no fruits had 
proceeded but impostures and delusions : if you were 
told, that into the heart of this society Buddhism had 
come, with its strange testimony of a Spirit in the hu- 
man race, the ordinary manifestations of which are 
seen in very ignorant priests, its perfect manifestation 
often in an infant : if you heard that these doctrines 
had never been able to combine, and yet that no one 
could succeed in banishing the other from an empire 
in which order and unity are prized as the highest 
blessings of all, nay, that experience had proved to 
reluctant sages, that none of these elements of discord 



224 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

could safely be extinguished, that each was in some 
strange way needful to the permanence of that which 
it seemed to undermine : — and if after this you heard 
of a faith which assumed that the ground of all things 
and all men is a Father ; that He has spoken and 
does speak by his Filial Word to the hearts and spirits 
of men, so making them wise, and separating them 
from what is base and vain ; that this Filial Word has 
been made flesh and dwelt among men, and has given 
them power to become sons of God ; and that through 
Him a Spirit is given to dwell with men, to raise up a 
new spirit in them, to unite them to each other, to make 
them living portions of a living body; that men are 
actually admitted by a simple rite into a Name expres- 
sive of their adoption by the Father, their separation 
by the Word, their inspiration by the Spirit ; that in 
this Name stood a universal fellowship, which upheld 
the authority of earthly fathers upon the ground of the 
divine relation, which asserted the distinction of wise 
and foolish, good and evil men, upon the ground of 
their following or disobeying the monitions of that 
filial teacher, from whom all right human instructors 
derived the power whereby they were able to make 
good and useful scholars, which maintained the inter- 
course and communion of human beings upon the 
ground of their obedience to the Spirit of order and 
harmony ; — if, I say, these two sets of facts were 
presented to you side by side, would not you feel 
there was some strange adaptation in the one to the 
other ; that there was in the last the secret principle 
and power for which it was evident from the former 
that China had through centuries been asking in vain ? 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 225 

VIII. But why do I speak thus ? Does it not sound 
like the idlest of all visions to talk of our converting 
Buddhists, when, judging from various indications, they 
are far more likely to convert us ? I have not dis- 
guised from you the Buddhist side of Christianity ; I 
have rejoiced to set it forth, as I rejoiced to set forth 
the Mahometan and Hindoo sides of it. But, as we saw 
that either of these elements might in any age become 
the predominant, almost the exclusive one, it is need- 
ful that we should consider well how this third doctrine 
may in former days have crushed, may crush in our 
own, every other. Assuredly, there are distinct traces 
of prevalent triumphant Buddhism in the Christian 
Church of periods gone by. The history of Orders 
rising up to reform society, to rebuke organized priest- 
hoods for their self-indulgence, coldness, exclusiveness, 
to assert the rights of the poor, to maintain that every 
member of Christ's flock has a calling to benefit the 
rest ; beginning thus nobly, and then sinking into more 
intolerable despots than those against whom they pro- 
tested, — self-exalted in their gifts, their knowledge, 
their ignorance, their poverty ; deceiving, and being 
deceived ; drawing all reverence to themselves on the 
score of their humility, holding down the poor in slav- 
ery, whom they came to deliver ; — this history con- 
tains one class of such phenomena. In the history of 
Mysticism and Quietism, telling how men beginning to 
seek God with earnest hearts, to denounce the idola- 
trous notions others had formed of Him, to retire into 
the secret chamber that there might be no hinderance 
from outward things to the clearness of the vision, to 



226 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

mortify their flesh that it might not stand in their way, 
went on till their hearts grew puffed up and proud, till 
they began to boast of wonderful discoveries vouch- 
safed to them alone, till they became the subjects of 
all nervous impressions, fantasies, disorders, more sen- 
sual than those whom they charged with being so ; 
how at last they gazed on vacancy, and felt, if they 
had not honesty to say, " The visiori is gone, we see 
nothing": here we find Chrisiian Buddhism in another 
manifestation. And the lessons which these two rec- 
ords supply are not obsolete ; either of these tempta- 
tions may assault any of us again ; in some form is per- 
haps assaulting all of us. 

IX. But chiefly should we be careful to note what 
common principle it was which in each of these cases 
turned so much seeming truth into a curse ; for it is of 
that we have need to beware in whatever dress it may 
come, or if our especial work should be to encounter it 
in its nakedness. Unquestionably the member of the 
order and the solitary mystic alike yielded to the feel- 
ing, " It is this power in me, this faculty of govern- 
ment, this faculty of vision, which is the great thing of 
all. How glorious to belong to this great society, for 
which I am ready to live and die ; how glorious to have 
this capacity of conversing with the Infinite, for the 
sake of which I have cheerfully resigned all things ! " 
Who could think that the deadliest poison was lurking 
in such words as these ; that there could be the essence 
of all pride in such self-sacrifice ? But what if men 
should say boldly, " It is this power in me which is 
really the great power of all ; it is this eye in me which 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 227 

creates the object it seems to behold. I will acknowl- 
edge nothing else, worship nothing else." What if this 
should be the language which men lisped a few years 
ago, and now begin to speak distinctly ? Then surely 
there will gradually appear most of the other signs which 
we have traced in Buddhism, and many which could not 
appear in it, or in any heathen system. First, the 
formation of an intellectual priesthood more utterly 
without the sense of a vocation, more simply glorying 
in its powers, therefore more intolerant, exclusive, 
oppressive, than any other with which this earth has 
ever been cursed. Next, the consciousness in that 
exclusive priesthood of a want of sympathy with actual 
men, notwithstanding their boast of humanity in the. 
abstract ; therefore an attempt to supply this want, as 
it always has been supplied, by devices to meet the 
taste of the vulgar, by prodigies, portents, sorceries ; 
physical mysteries being called in as a compensation 
for the absence of divine mysteries ; science being 
degraded into an instrument of basest imposture. 
Finally, intellectual worship, after giving birth to all 
forms of empiricism, ending at last m the elevation of 
some merely brute power to the throne of the uni- 
verse ; a power which will prove by its triumph, that, 
if intellect, freedom, humanity, have no better protec- 
tors than themselves, they must be trampled down ; 
will prove, as we are well assured, by its ultimate dis- 
comfiture, that they have another Protector, Him from 
whom all good and perfect gifts have come. 

X. But it will avail little to call up such visions as 
these, however certain we may feel from the testimony 



228 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

of history that they will one day show themselves to 
be realities, if they lead us only to the denunciation of 
others, to a dread of the words which they speak, or of 
the acts which they do. Oftentimes I fear such de- 
nunciations and such dread conceal a very shallow 
faith in ourselves ; oftentimes they indicate that we are 
sadly beset with that pride in our own intellectual 
powers which we attribute to others. Ourselves we 
need to suspect; our own half-belief in the truths of 
which we talk most loudly; our own readiness to sub- 
stitute the conclusions of our understandings for the 
Divine teaching. If we heartily confess these sins and 
repent of them, we shall not magnify the operations of 
the Divine Spirit less because some seem to contem- 
plate them exclusively ; we shall not be betrayed into 
the vulgar and deceitful policy of underrating the rea- 
son and faculties of men, because some seem to over- 
value them ; we shall not fancy that we show great 
dexterity and piety when we force a feeling in one 
direction, because its natural growth seems to be in 
another. 

Rather, we shall regard all the tendencies of particu- 
lar periods with reverence, as indications of God's will, 
however perverted by man's ignorance and selfishness. 
When we meet with a fanatical exaltation of spiritual 
emotions, excitements, ecstasies, we shall be most anx- 
ious to assert the reality and universality of spiritual 
communications ; to place them on their deepest ground, 
to show how utterly dreary man's condition would be 
without them. When we see a fanatical exaltation of 
human faculties, then most shall we be eager to assert 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 229 

their worth and sacredness ; to vindicate them from all 
aspersions grounded upon the imperfections which 
attach to them in this world ; to maintain that he who 
refuses them the noblest cultivation despises and blas- 
phemes the Author of them. And that the truths pro- 
claimed by raving Sects and by Idolaters of the Intellect 
may both be preserved, we shall bring them into fel- 
lowship. The communication of the Divine Spirit we 
shall believe to be the only means whereby the Reason, 
the Heart, the Understanding, are enabled to perform 
their rightful functions, to be vigorous, calm, pure, in 
harmony with the mind of the Creator, and with all 
that is truly human. Holding all power as a trust, 
every office as a stewardship, believing that the Divine 
Spirit itself who dwells with us is the greatest trust, the 
most awful stewardship, we shall feel more the glory 
of our race because we feel more our own insignifi- 
cance ; shall be more really men, because we walk 
more humbly with our God. 



LECTURE IV. 

The early Preaching of the Gospel, — how it af- 
fected Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Goths. Forji 
of this Preaching. Resistance from the Doctrine 
of an Evil Principle. Mahometan Protest against 
it, and for the Sacredness of the Outward World. 
Hindoo Protest on Behalf of a Divine Kingdom. 
Buddhist Protest for an actual Indwelling Spirit. 
Modern Infidel Protest for Humanity. Christian- 
ity established by all. Conclusion. 

In former Lectures I have considered the relation in 
which Christianity stands to the existing religious sys- 
tems of the world, to Mahometan ism, Hindooism, 
Buddhism. In this, the last Lecture of the course, 
I ought, according to the plan which I laid down for 
myself, to consider in what relation it stands to those 
which I called the defunct systems, — those of ancient 
Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Gothic world. 
But it will strike you at once that this subject has, in a 
great measure, been anticipated. 

I could not allude to the facts which justified my 
use of the word defunct, in reference to these religions, 
without indicating the kind of influence which Chris- 
tianity had exercised over them. I was obliged to tell 
you that the worship of the God of Light in Greece, the 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 231 

state religion of Rome, the worship of Odin amongst 
the Goths, had given way before the preaching of the 
Crucified Son of God. I could not omit to notice the 
way in which the Gospel had established itself hvthe 
Greek cities of Egypt, or the influence it had received 
from the culture previously existing in them, or the 
resistance it had met with in the country districts 
where the old Egyptian doctrine had its strongest hold. 
I could not but speak of that revival of the Persian 
faith, which took place in the second century of the 
Christian era, of the obstruction which that faith offered 
to the Gospel, of its remarkable reaction upon some of 
the teachers of the Gospel. I should have no excuse 
for travelling again over this ground, though the obser-' 
vation we took of it was so rapid and superficial, were 
it not that the facts to which I have just alluded, taken 
in connection with those which have engaged our at- 
tention already, suggest painful doubts to the mind, 
doubts closely related to those which it has been the 
object of the whole course to examine. 

The aspect of Christianity in the first ages, notwith- 
standing the exceptions which I have noticed, is that of 
a youthful, growing, victorious doctrine ; its roots laid 
in the depths ; its branches spreading over the earth, 
and reaching to heaven. But then came Mahometan- 
ism, utterly exterminating that Persian doctrine with 
which the Christian teachers had so unsuccessfully 
fought; bringing Egypt, great part of Asia, and a sec- 
tion of Europe, under its yoke. When we studied the 
history of this faith, we learnt that it had conquered 
much from the Gospel, and had scarcely, through 



232 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

twelve centuries, yielded to any permanent impression 
from it. The latter assertion is almost as true of Hin- 
dooism, in spite of the establishment of a Christian 
empire in the East. Buddhism still holds a third of 
the globe in almost undisturbed possession. Now a 
person comparing these two sets of facts will be very 
likely to say, " Supposing your answers to the philo- 
sophical objectors, who maintain that Christianity is a 
decaying, nearly obsolete creed, be ever so relevant 
and strong, yet what are they when weighed against 
this startling confirmation of their statements ? Must 
not that faith have had a fitness for other ages, an 
unfitness for ours, which during six centuries accom- 
plished so much, which now seems to be accomplish- 
ing almost nothing ; which could then encounter the 
wisdom and power of those nations that we still recog- 
nize as having been the wisest and mightiest in the 
world, which now fails in a conflict with the ignorant and 
incoherent worshippers of Buddha ? And if you escape 
by pleading that the human professors of this doctrine 
are less sincere and energetic than they were, what is 
this but saying that it depends on human energy ; that 
it is, in fact, a human system, strong whilst those who 
hold it are strong, — sure to wither when their zeal 
withers ? " Such an objection as this cannot be evaded. 
In considering it, I shall be led to examine the different 
steps we have taken, beginning with the question, How 
did Christianity address itself to the systems with which, 
in its infancy, it came into collision ? 

I am forced to use the word Christianity ; for many 
purposes it is a convenient one. But I must remind 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 233 

you, that it was not a word which was familiar to the 
Apostles, or to those who succeeded them in the first 
ages. We are not told that they went forth preaching 
Christianity. The writer of the Acts of the Apostles 
says that they preached the " Kingdom of God," or 
" the Gospel of God," or " Christ," or " the Gospel of 
Christ." To expound these words fully, would be to 
expound the New Testament. But this meaning lies 
upon the surface of them : the Apostles came witness- 
ing of a Lord and King ; the Lord and King of men. 
The proclamation of the Crucified Man, as the Son of 
God, was their Gospel, or good tidings. In that char- 
acter men were invited to receive Him. The Apostles 
believed their own words ; they could therefore trust 
God to prove them true. If this man were the King of 
the World, strange and ridiculous as the proposition 
might sound in the ears of Jews or Heathens, He would 
be shown to be such by one means or other. Some of 
the Apostles knew nothing of the previous feelings and 
discipline of the nations ; some, as the Apostle Paul, 
might have meditated on that subject, and have con- 
versed much with men of different opinions. But all 
alike met the people among whom they came, not with 
arguments to prove this opinion true, or that false, but 
with the announcement of a Person who had a right 
to men's obedience, and whom it was good that they 
should obey. 

I. St. Paul at Athens encountered Epicureans and 

Stoics ; he disputed with them in the market-place. 

When we are made acquainted with his words, we 

find they were of this kind : " Whom ye ignorantly wor- 

16 



234 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

ship, Him declare I unto you." " Your poets have 
said that we are the offspring of God ; it is true ; there- 
fore do not make Him after the likeness of things you 
see. He is not far from any of us ; for in Him we 
live, and move, and have our being. He has appointed 
a day in the which He will judge the world by that 
Man whom He hath ordained ; whereof He hath given 
assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him 
from the dead." This language, you see, assumed 
that the Athenians were in search of God ; that they 
were ignorantly worshipping Him ; that they had a 
sense of His being a father ; that they wanted some 
one living, human image of Him, to supplant those 
images of Him which they had made for themselves. 
In Athens itself the words were little heeded ; men 
there were busy seeking for some new thing to talk of; 
they were occupied with schemes of the universe ; of 
realities they had lost the perception. But the teach- 
ing was adapted to all that was sound and true in the 
Greek mind ; it met whatever wants that mind was 
conscious of. The Greek asked for one who should 
exhibit humanity in its perfection ; he was told of a 
Son of Man. He felt that whoever did so exhibit Hu- 
manity must be divine. The Son of Man was declared 
to be the Son of God. He had dreamed of one from 
whom the highest glory man could conceive must have 
proceeded. He was told of a Father. He had thought 
of a Divine Presence in every tree and flower. He 
heard of a Presence nearer still to himself. He was 
not told that he must cease to believe in powers ruling 
in the Sun or Moon, or over any portion of the earth. 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 235 

The Apostles had no commission to declare there 
might not be such Powers, or whether they had actual 
personality ; they were not to deny the existence of 
kingly men upon the earth, or of angels or saints in the 
unseen world ; only they were to say, This Man is 
the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Of his ful- 
ness must they all have received who are any thing, 
or ever were any thing, here or elsewhere ; their gra- 
ces can only be a reflection from His grace. They 
were to say, He is nearer to you, — more directly re- 
lated to you than all these can be ; for He has taken 
the nature of all, and borne the sorrows and sins of all : 
in Him there is nothing partial, nothing imperfect; no 
feebleness of sympathy in any single direction. They 
were to say farther, If in any of the objects of your 
reverence there is any thing earthly, sensual, evil ; any 
thing belonging to human nature in its corruption : 
then that must be contrary to Him ; that must be at 
war with Him. So far as any creature is endued with 
such qualities, it is an evil creature ; it has the evil 
spirit ; it is not to be worshipped as if it were glorious, 
but renounced as devilish ; as that which would draw 
you from the true estate into which Christ, by taking 
your nature, has redeemed you. Therefore the Greek 
mythology was met at all points by this Gospel. What 
was actually or possibly good in it, the Revelation of 
Christ comprehended ; what was evil and degraded it 
wrestled with, by proclaiming the good which it had 
counterfeited. But this was its charm, The Greek had 
a world without a centre ; the preachers of the Gospel 
made the centre known to him. What could revolve 



236 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

about it, fell into its proper orbit ; what determined to 
move independently of the centre, was seen to be un- 
natural and distracted. 

II. How the Gospel found its way into the Egyp- 
tian heart we are nol^ informed so distinctly. This 
however we may remember : Our Lord spoke to His 
disciples in parables ; through them he declared the 
mysteries of the kingdom. The facts of outward na- 
ture, the ordinary transactions of man, he recognized 
as a sacred writing, in which God had expressed part 
of his meaning, a meaning which he did not will to 
remain hidden, but which his Son unfolded. That the 
preachers of the Christian kingdom in Egypt should 
think much on this method of discovering the divine 
treasures was inevitable. But the substance of the 
communication was still the same. The Egyptian was 
questioning all nature to tell him of the Ammon, the 
hidden God : the Christian answer was still, " Him 
declare we unto you." 

III. So it fared likewise with the Roman, whose 
worship had really, as we saw, a different direction 
from that of the Greek, however at various points they 
might intersect each other. The clear intellect, the 
beautiful form, were not in his mind the constituents of 
Kinghood or Godhead. Order, self-government, the 
capacity of ruling others, submission of individual will 
to law, he demanded in the chief man ; and qualities 
corresponding to these alone seemed to him divine. A 
faith without an organized harmonious society, was to 
the Latin a dream. After many struggles, his own 
mighty commonwealth had felt that it could only con- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 237 

tinue to exist under the guidance of a single head ; 
and that head one uniting military and religious titles ; 
a ruler of armies, an object of adoration. A king, in 
whom was seen the perfect fulfilment of Law, — the 
surrender of the individual Will to the Higher Will ; 
the entire self-sacrifice ; a King who was the centre of 
a society, the head of many members, was proclaimed 
by the fishermen of Galilee, by the tent-maker of Tar- 
sus. That announcement met Roman life on all its 
sides and aspects ; adopted its highest maxims ; over- 
reached its noblest idea of fellowship ; showed that 
the true society had for its chief, one altogether un- 
like the emperor ; one whom he must crush, or to 
whom he must bow. And so, by slow degrees, the 
Roman state-idolatry, like the Greek idolatry of in- 
dividual forms and persons, perished out of the world. 

IV. The Goths, again, heard the same proclama- 
tion of a kingdom of God. It did not find them watch- 
ing the embers of an expiring civilization, but full of 
boyish vigor and life and rudeness, eager to break and 
subdue the earth ; possessed by the wildest dreams of 
powers in earth and sea which wrestled for victory ; 
doing homage to a champion of a strong hand and 
seeing eye, the leader of their hosts and their prophet. 
With much joy, though amidst much confusion, 
these barbarians welcomed the tidings of a Redeemer 
in whom men could own at once their Lord and their 
brother. 

A redemption of man, a redemption of all that 
had been lost or disorderly in creation, was equally 
assumed in the preaching to Greeks, Romans, and 



238 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

Goths. It was set forth as an accomplished fact ; as 
laying the only right and reasonable groundwork for 
human life ; as that of which the Church, by its very 
existence, bore testimony. And it was signified in the 
word Redemption, that the partakers of it were not 
brought into some novel or unnatural state, but into that 
for which they were created, that which was implied in 
their human constitution. 

V. If this was the nature of the Christian preach- 
ing and its success, we may understand where it was 
likely to encounter the greatest obstructions. The 
Persians believed in two rulers of the world, one good, 
one evil. The great reformer had indeed affirmed that 
the Lord of Light would prevail at last. He seems to 
have believed that the Prince of Darkness was a rebel 
against him ; not originally a divider of his throne. 
But he never quite realized this conviction ; he could 
not entirely deny the outward universe to Ahriman ; 
the Persians generally deemed him to be the creator of 
it. The two powers were regarded as having each a 
right over man, his flesh and his external circumstan- 
ces being especially the property of the dark Spirit. 
What mighty evidences there seemed to be in favor of 
this hypothesis ! How all history, from its beginning 
onwards, seemed to vouch for it ! What obstinacy in 
the old forms of evil ; what new floods of it were con- 
tinually pouring in, as from a perennial source ! In 
the third and fourth centuries, when the Roman empire 
was tottering to its fall, under the weight of its own 
wickedness, the proofs of Ahriman's sovereignty were 
surely not less than they had been before. Had the 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 239 

Gospel of Christ permanently altered this state of 
things ? When the Persian conversed with Chris- 
tians, he found them more ready than others to ac- 
knowledge an evil in themselves, more sensitive to its 
existence in the world. They even seemed to admit its 
supremacy, and to speak of the higher and purer state 
which they said Christ had established as a deliverance 
out of the natural human condition ; of His saints as 
rebelling against the Prince of this World. Such lan- 
guage, often carelessly and ignorantly used, often mis- 
understood when it was rightly used, may at first have 
led the Magian to think that the Gospel had not under- 
mined his primitive doctrine, — had rather brought 
new facts in confirmation of it. And yet he will have 
found Christians ready to live and die for the assertion 
that Christ was the one only Lord ; that all things in 
heaven and earth and under the earth were subject to 
Him ; that no power of evil could measure itself against 
Him ; that He held an undoubted, undivided authority. 
The Persian will therefore have felt that, in spite of 
seeming coincidences, this faith was one with which 
his could not consist ; that he was bound to exterminate 
the believers in Jesus, if he could not convert them. 

We have good evidence that no question was so pro- 
foundly agitating to men's minds in the first ages as 
this. The Magians, as I said, succeeded in reestab- 
lishing their old doctrine, and with it the old Persian 
empire. But the belief in rival powers of good and 
evil, to the latter of which the origin of all visible 
things might be ascribed, spread far beyond its limits. 
It incorporated itself with all the religious and philo- 



240 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

sophical views of the age ; it penetrated deeply into 
the Church of Christ, was the great characteristic of 
its most prevalent heresy, and mingled, in different 
forms and measures, with every other. Of all tests of 
the reality of Christian humility and faith, the greatest 
seems to have been the power of practically meeting 
this temptation, of resisting the conclusion that a per- 
fectly good being could not be the author and ruler of 
the universe ; that man could not really be a holy and 
redeemed creature ; that the material world, at all 
events, must be given up as an evil thing. Only the 
simple, child-like trust which said, "There are many 
things I cannot explain, but this I know, that the Son 
of God has taken my nature and made it holy, has 
walked this earth and made it holy, that He has adopted 
us into fellowship with Him, and commands us to look 
upon ourselves as holy, in spite of all the evil that is 
in us ; and commands us to treat every creature as holy, 
though corruption and death may have set their mark 
upon it," — only a faith of this kind, surmounting present 
appearances, and laying hold of a higher truth, waiting 
calmly for them and it to be reconciled in God's good 
time, and meanwhile bracing the heart to those daily 
duties which, on the other hypothesis, must have been 
thrown aside as useless and hopeless, could have hin- 
dered any Christian from becoming inwardly, if not 
professedly, a Manichean. St. Augustine has given 
us, in his own biography, a striking picture of this con- 
flict. With a Christian mother and a heathen father, 
brought up in the feeble rhetoric of his time, but full of 
earnest thoughts which made him long to understand 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 241 

the nature of himself and of God ; full also of violent 
passions seeking for gratification ; he eagerly embraced 
the doctrine of the Manichean teachers, for it seemed 
at once to explain the problem of the universe, and to 
justify the indulgences which something within him 
condemned. He shows us how he was forced from 
speculations upon things without, to a more awful study 
of that which was passing in himself; how he learnt to 
perceive that the evil within him was the resistance of 
his will to a perfect and holy will ; how this discovery 
did much more than scatter his old notions ; how it led 
him to ask what that pure and holy Being had been 
doing on behalf of our race ; whether He had offered 
men the means of knowing Him and being like Him. 
Then the meaning of Christ's coming dawned upon 
him ; he believed that the perfect and holy Being was 
manifested in Him ; that in Him man might behold his 
own true and proper state, and rise to it ; that in His 
strength we may cast off evil from us, as an enemy 
which has no proper right or dominion over us, or over 
any creature ; that man when he becomes the slave of 
outward things is evil, not because they are evil, but 
because he is created to be their master. These truths, 
which slowly worked themselves out in his mind amidst 
great discouragements and bitter sorrows, he was as- 
serting under one aspect or another all his life through. 
Shadows of his old system no doubt often darkened his 
intellect ; when he was tempted to make Christianity a 
system, they were sure to reappear. But there were 
times in his life when he felt more clearly than almost 
any man ever did, that evil does not belong to the 



242 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

order of the universe, but is its disorder ; that every 
creature seeking to dwell in selfish independence, of 
necessity embraces that disorder and becomes a part 
of it ; that every creature entering into God's covenant 
and yielding itself to Him, becomes orderly, reason- 
able, blessed. 

But it required more than the teaching of any man, 
however wise, to check a belief which was so plausible 
as this. Though only open heretics affirmed that the 
world was essentially an evil thing, and originated in 
an evil Being, from whom Christ came to deliver his 
disciples, — though these statements were generally felt 
to be blasphemous, — yet numbers acted as if they 
were true. Those who decided to live pure and holy 
lives left the world that they might do so. The sphere 
of human action was regarded by saints as an ungodly 
one, and those who moved in it and ruled it showed by 
their lives that they adopted the opinion. There was 
no distinct, audible voice, declaring, " The kingdoms 
of this world are the kingdoms of our God and of His 
Christ." The belief silently gained ground, that there 
was no warrant for such an assertion ; that the redemp- 
tion which our Lord had wrought, whatever it might 
mean, did not mean this. 

VI. But soon a voice was heard, speaking these 
words in the ears both of Persians and Christians : 
" This earth is the possession of the One Lord, the 
God of Abraham ; He claimed it as His when He 
called out Abraham, and promised that he and his 
seed should possess a portion of it. The earth is still 
His. Those who say he has an equal or rival are 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 243 

liars." This was Mahomet's language. His sword 
was ready to make it good. The Magian faith, the 
Persian empire, fell to pieces before it. Of all the Ma- 
hometan enterprises this was the most startling, and 
that by which its other triumphs may be best under- 
stood. We complain of Mahometanism for its hard 
outward character ; for the materialism of its acts and 
its rewards. But see how well suited it was on this 
very ground to meet precisely that evil tendency to 
which men's minds had yielded. The denial of God's 
dominion over the actual world ; the notion, that, though 
He might have a reign somewhere else, it was not 
here ; this unbelief was destroying all ordinary moral- 
ity, all simple trust in a Father, was introducing athe-. 
ism, or else devil-worship, among those who pretended 
to worship the Holy God, and utterly to renounce his 
enemies. No mere spiritualism, if it had been ever so 
fine and true, could have broken this spell. Palpable 
proofs were wanted that the kingdoms of this very 
earth were subject to an Unseen and Absolute Sover- 
eign. And the Mahometan conquests, though so 
mighty a testimony against Christians, were not a 
testimony against the Gospel, but for it ; a testimony 
to one necessary, forgotten portion of it ; a proof that, 
if the Church of Christ forgets its own proper position, 
God can raise up the strangest instruments to do his 
work. 

I say one portion of the Gospel ; for you will remind 
me that, if Mahometanism asserted half the doctrine of 
the text I quoted just now, " The kingdoms of this 
earth are God's," it denied the latter half of it, " and 



244 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

His Christ's." But this remark requires to be ex- 
plained and qualified by two others. Mahometanism 
does, indeed, deny the fact on which our Gospel rests, 
that a man is verily and indeed one with the Lord of 
all ; how that denial has affected the whole system, I 
have considered in a former Lecture. But if we re- 
member what the doctrine was which Mahometanism 
subverted, we shall see that it involved a much more 
direct denial of Christ, of his rule over this universe, 
and of his relation to God. The disposition to look 
upon the world as the possession of an evil power, 
which belonged to the Persian, and to the Christian 
who had caught his temper, made it impossible even to 
think of it as connected with Christ. The idea of 
Christ as a deliverer of man from the power of his 
Creator, went far deeper than the denial of His essen- 
tial oneness with the Creator. So far as Mahometan- 
ism helped to clear the air of these pollutions, it 
removed the greatest of all impediments to the recog- 
nition of that doctrine which it set at naught. But 
secondly, in order to understand the effect of a system, 
and the place it occupies in the scheme of Providence, 
we should think not only of itself, but also of that 
which has been called out in opposition to it. The 
formation of society in modern Europe stands in close 
relation to the history of Mahometanism. The Chris- 
tian nations were brought to feel that they were con- 
nected with each other, and what connected them, by 
seeing such large portions of the world knit together in 
the acknowledgment of the Arabian prophet. Then 
was the feeling distinctly realized, that all government 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 245 

has a Divine basis, that kings must be anointed with 
oil in the name of Christ, that the different members of 
the community hold their possessions, offices, powers, 
ultimately of Him ; that they depend in different gra- 
dations upon each other ; that fealty is due to that 
which is unseen, reverence to that which is weak. 
Thus, in short, those institutions, forms, habits of 
thought, established themselves which characterize the 
Middle Ages ; which may be mischievous when they 
exclude other principles, more clearly perceived in 
later times ; which have become mixed with corrup- 
tions, counterfeits, tyrannies, and confounded with 
them ; but which are essential elements of our social 
existence at this day, and cannot perish until we 
perish. Now these embodied the other half of the 
great truth which St. John's words express : " The 
kingdoms of this world are the kingdoms of his Christ." 
Nor should it be forgotten, that while the Mahometan 
doctrine has been proved by the evidence of history to 
be maimed and self-destructive, so long as it stands 
alone, rejecting the principle of European society ; that 
society was continually in danger of losing its own 
foundation and stability, and of becoming utterly idola- 
trous and depraved through forgetfulness of the prin- 
ciple which the Mahometans put forth. The worship 
of the men who uttered, of the visible symbols which 
shadowed forth, divine truths, might have effaced those 
truths, but for the testimony which Islamism was per- 
mitted to bear on behalf of them. 

VII. But though the Gospel, as it was preached by 
the Apostles and others who followed them, involved 



246 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

the assertion that the earth was redeemed and claimed 
as God's possession by Christ, I am far from affirming 
that this was its only or its most characteristic affirma- 
tion. The Old Testament was especially the witness 
for God's government of the earth. The New speaks 
of the kingdom of heaven. John the Baptist said the 
kingdom of heaven was at hand. Our Lord illustrated 
its principles in every discourse and every miracle ; 
His Apostles invited men to enter into it ; in their 
Epistles they unfolded its nature to those who had 
believed the message and sought the privilege. This 
kingdom they described as one of righteousness, peace, 
and joy ; the eye could not see it, but it was most real. 
It was a kingdom for the heart and spirit of man, for 
that which was most properly himself, for that in which 
dwell all his capacities of sorrow, of sympathy, of trust, 
of hope, of love. It was called the kingdom of God 
because communion with Him is the great blessedness 
of it. And it is the kingdom of God because men are 
brought into it that they may see themselves, their fel- 
low-creatures, the whole universe, as He sees them ; 
not partially, or each in reference to a separate centre, 
as they naturally do. Into this kingdom, our Lord 
said, men were pressing. Experience of sorrow, a 
sense of weariness and dissatisfaction with all that was 
visible, the feeling of a good almost within reach and yet 
never quite attained ; above all, the bitter conscious- 
ness of something wrong within, which needed to be 
purged away, of a hollow which needed to be filled 
up ; these were intimations to men of an unseen treas- 
ure which they were intended to possess, which only 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 247 

One mightier than they could enable them to possess. 
Such thoughts and longings would especially haunt the 
hearts of poor and suffering people ; they would be 
rarer in men who had ease and comfort. But our 
Lord spoke of a divine power which could awaken in 
all the desire and capacity for this good ; of a birth 
from above by which their spirits might be made fit for 
the Kingdom of Heaven ; of an inward eye which 
might be opened to behold it. The Apostles, when 
they baptized men into the Name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, bade them understand 
that this power was given them, and that though their 
bodies dwelt in Corinth or Ephesus, their real home 
was with Him whom they could love, but not see. 
These were the words which stirred the hearts of the 
early Christians, and led them to that indifference for 
outward things which afterwards blended so easily 
with the Persian notion that these things were to be 
despised or regarded as evil in themselves. But the 
truth was not the less mighty because it was capable 
of a grievous perversion. The belief in it was the 
strength in which the Christian confessor lived and 
died. The invisible world was his dwelling : each day 
he sought to become more familiar with it, to have 
every thought and feeling brought into harmony with 
it, to show forth more of the temper and spirit of it in 
his converse with his fellow-creatures. While, indeed, 
he kept his Lord's words and example in recollection, 
he could not scorn any earthly task, he must look upon 
all the creatures of God as good ; while he remem- 
bered for what end Christ had come upon earth, he 



248 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

must deem fellowship with men more blessed than 
separation from them. Still it was the first gift of his 
redemption, that he could rise out of this circle of 
things. And when he saw to what coldness and hard- 
ness of heart, to what gross superstitions, those yielded, 
whose thoughts and aspirations were bounded by what 
they could see and handle, he could understand in 
what sense St. Paul blessed God for having delivered 
the Galatians out of this present evil world. It was 
an evil world, because men made it so, by renouncing 
the privilege of men ; by living as if they had only 
senses and were not spiritual beings capable of spiritual 
enjoyments ; as if each could only realize the little 
portion of the goods of earth which he calls his prop- 
erty, and might not enter upon that inheritance of true 
blessedness which all may share together, as all may 
share the light of the sun together. 

If men could so pervert these truths as to forget that 
the outward world was redeemed to be a part of God's 
kingdom, and if their inward life suffered terribly from 
this forgetfulness, it became* manifest in the course of 
ages that they could quite as easily lose sight of that 
which was specially and emphatically the Christian 
doctrine while they seemed to admit and prize its 
material results. Since the active energies of men's 
minds have been awakened, since we have felt that it 
is our vocation to subdue the earth, to trade, colonize, 
and conquer, this has become the characteristic temp- 
tation of all Christian nations, perhaps 1 may say, 
especially the characteristic one of our own ; for it lies 
close to some of our highest virtues, to our business- 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 249 

like habits, our love of action, our impatience of what 
does not look real and practical. 

Englishmen in the last century seem for the most 
part to have persuaded themselves that man is not a 
mysterious being ; that the Gospel does not address 
him as such ; that its main use is to check disorders 
which the law cannot entirely redress, to make ser- 
vants respectful to their masters, to keep the humble 
classes from interfering with the privileges of their 
superiors ; that the kingdom of heaven is a place 
where certain rewards are bestowed hereafter for 
decency of conduct here. Those who refused to act 
upon these maxims, and earnestly devoted themselves 
to a spiritual life, fancied, not unnaturally, that the 
desires of which they were conscious did not properly 
belong to human beings ; that all men ought to have 
them, but that in fact scarcely any had them ; that the 
unseen world is for the select few, not for mankind. 

But to Englishmen in the eighteenth century, the 
continent of India revealed itself with its treasures and 
its wonders. Its material treasures might help to 
strengthen the worldly appetite which went in search 
of them ; but its wonders, well considered, might surely 
have supplied the counteraction, might have proved that 
men eveiywhere need a kingdom of heaven as well as 
a kingdom on earth. The Hindoo lives in a world of 
thought. He is certain that divine knowledge, the 
knowledge of Brahm, is the highest end of life. He 
cannot be satisfied till he is united with the Divinity. 
The divine man, he says, must be a twice-born man, 
must be raised out of his natural condition, must not lose 
17 



250 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

himself in communion with outward things. Indica- 
tions of this faith are forced upon the observation of 
every Englishman in India ; he may explain them as 
he will, but he cannot deny them. Do they not say to 
him, just perhaps when the associations of his child- 
hood are about to be cast off altogether, — " What you 
used to hear from your nurse and your mother may 
after all mean something. You were told that you 
were a twice-born man, a member of Christ, a child of 
God, an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. May 
there not be treasures nearer to you than these Indian 
treasures, treasures which are yours by the clearest 
title, and yet which you have never reduced into pos- 
session ? If you could impart them to these subjects 
of ours, might you not do that for them which the best 
legislation cannot do ? Will you not at least ask wheth- 
er the Hindoo is wrong in thinking that man is made 
for something else than to buy and sell, to eat, drink, 
and die ; and whether, if he is right, there is any es- 
cape from his restless self-torture, except in the calm 
faith that it is our Father's good pleasure to give 
us that kingdom which the idolater would at the 
price of any anguish wring from the objects of his 
worship ? " 

Here then is a voice coming from the most opposite 
quarter to that whence the other was brought to us, — 
a voice of the most different kind. Yet it comes as a 
witness, not against, but for that which we have been 
taught to believe, a witness, not for, but against our in- 
difference to it. So that these two voices compared 
together may, I think, help to answer the question we 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 251 

have been examining, whether Christianity be not de- 
pendent for its evidence and its success upon the faith 
of those who promulgate it. There cannot be a truer 
assertion, than that this is the criterion of a human sys- 
tem ; there cannot be a more undoubted prophecy, than 
that the Gospel, if it be a human system, must perish, 
as all systems are perishing. On the other hand, 
if it were any thing more than this, we should expect 
that the weakness, heartlessness, cowardice, baseness 
of its advocates, would themselves be in some way con- 
verted into demonstrations of its truth ; that when men 
were holding their peace respecting it, the stones would 
cry out. Have we not found this to be the fact ? You 
say that Islamism has not fallen before the Cross. No, 
but Islamism has become one of God's witnesses for 
the Cross when those who pretended to bear it had 
really changed it for another standard. You say that 
Hindooism stands undisturbed by the presence of a 
triumphant Christian nation. Yes, for Hindooism has 
been wanted to teach this nation what it is very nearly 
forgetting itself, very nearly forcing others to forget, 
that Christianity is not a dream or a lie. 

I believe these conclusions must be brought home, 
in some way or other, to the hearts as well of those 
who are earnest about heathen missions as of those who 
are indifferent to them. For what is it that palsies all 
efforts of this kind ; what is it that produces the con- 
trast which we have confessed between the teachers of 
our own and those of earlier days ?' Is it not that we 
have more than half subscribed to the philosophical 
doctrine ; more than half acted as if we were engaged 



252 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

in propagating a system of our own ? Has not the 
impression we have conveyed to the minds of Ma- 
hometans and Pagans been something of this kind : 
" These Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, or Eng- 
lishmen, acknowledge a certain teacher, to whom they 
attach very high titles. They wish us to acknowledge 
their teacher instead of those whom we in Arabia, Per- 
sia, or Hindostan, have been accustomed to honor. 
In other words, they wish to make us Europeans, to 
bring us over to their modes and habits of thinking." 
I know and thank God that other impressions than this 
have been made by the Christian missionaries of all 
ages and nations upon those among whom they have 
gone. I know that the hearts of many of them have 
been so possessed with the love of Him who died for 
them and for all mankind, that they could not speak 
of Him as if He was their teacher, the Head of their 
sect. By their language, by their acts, by that higher, 
simpler teaching which the Bible supplies, they must 
have carried home to many a broken-hearted creature, 
crying for a Comforter, the assurance that there is One 
who has taken the nature, not of Englishmen, French- 
men, Spaniards, but of Man ; who has entered into 
man's misery and death ; has borne the sins of man ; 
has encountered all his enemies, and vanquished them. 
The history of Missions would be barren indeed if 
this were not the case. But the more we admit the 
worth of such testimonies — (how great it has been we 
shall not know till the great day of revelation) — the 
more convinced must we be that the old proclamation 
of a divine kingdom, the old Gospel that the Son of 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 253 

God the Deliverer of Man has appeared and will be 
shown hereafter to be the Lord of the Universe, is the 
only effectual one ; that this is as fresh to-day as it was 
eighteen hundred years ago, because it is a proclama- 
tion of that eternal Law of the universe, which wears 
not out, which grows not old ; is not, in any sense 
whatever, our scheme, or theory of the universe, but 
is sent to confound, to break in pieces, our schemes 
and theories of the universe ; to show how feeble and 
contemptible we and they are ; how little we or any 
human creatures want a theory ; what absolute need 
all creatures have of a Living God who will reveal to 
us Himself: what relation there is between us and 
Him ; how He works in us to bring us to know His 
purposes, and to move in accordance with them. 

VIII. That last discovery is indeed one without 
which the words I have just been speaking would 
seem only words of discouragement. To look out 
upon the world, and see a valley covered with the dry 
bones of different systems, to hear them clashing to- 
gether as if they might be joined to each other, and 
then to be told, " It is all in vain ; there is no voice 
which can bid the breath enter into these bones ; per- 
haps it might have come from Christians, but it does 
not ; they too occupy part of this valley ; they have 
become dry bones, very dry indeed ; clashing always, 
never uniting," — such an announcement as this, how- 
ever softened by thoughts of the past or the future, 
must be a very mournful one. But that third great re- 
ligion of the world comes to turn the current of these 
thoughts, to check this despondency. We are but 



254 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

ill provided with a theory, say the Buddhists ; we have 
tried many, and little fruit has come of them. But 
this we are assured of : you Christians may not have 
heard it, but there is a quickening, life-giving Spirit, 
which is meant for humanity ; which all may possess 
together ; which alone can bring a universe out of 
chaos, unity out of division. Wonderful testimony to 
be borne from the ends of the earth, from such a med- 
ley of strange people, so different in their thoughts, so 
incoherent in their utterances ! Is not the report of it 
like the sound of that rushing mighty wind, which was 
heard on the day of Pentecost, not indeed itself the 
promised Power, but the type and herald of it ? Does 
it not say that we too might have cloven tongues to de- 
clare, in different tones and measures, according to the 
different thoughts, habits, and apprehensions of men, 
the same wonderful works of God, and that these 
tongues might be of fire if only the living inspiration 
were confessed and obeyed by us ? Does it not bid us 
remember that with this Spirit of peace and love and a 
sound mind we have been sealed ; that the Name of 
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which 
was to be the blessing, the permanent blessing, of Pen- 
tecost, has been bestowed upon us ; that we hold this 
Spirit, not as the Buddhists dream, by our own right, 

— to be therefore the witness of our independence, 
flowing from no source whence it may be replenished, 

— but as the very bond of our dependence and child- 
hood ; as the Spirit of adoption, whereby we are to cry, 
Abba, Father ; as the power whereby we can ask and 
receive a new life day by day ? If so, there is cause 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 255 

enough for humiliation in all of us, for despair in none. 
The broken limbs of the world may yet be united, if 
the broken limbs of the Church be united first. But 
are these the limbs of a great system, or of a living 
body ? Holding the first opinion of herself, the Church 
has been either held artificially together, the children 
within her groaning under the bondage to which she 
has subjected them, those without hearing in her invita- 
tion a message, not of deliverance, but of heavier slav- 
ery ; or else, these artificial joints and fastenings being 
removed, she has split into fragments, upon which those 
who are clinging to them feel they can less and less 
depend, which offer to heathens an excuse for adhering 
to the tradition of their fathers, be it ever so dreary, 
till we who bid them leave it are agreed what they 
should adopt in its place. But if the Scripture lan- 
guage is true, if the Church is a body constituted in a 
Head, the Buddhist proclamation carries with it the re- 
proof and consolation which we require. There is a 
Power which can bring us, not into some imaginary 
condition of excellence, but precisely into our true con- 
dition : which can remove the individual interests, self- 
ish feelings, national antipathies, narrow apprehensions, 
that all our efforts to produce unity have only evoked 
and strengthened ; which can bring down our high no- 
tions and conceits of what we are and what we do ; which 
can enable us to be God's servants and to do His work 
in the world He has redeemed. Having confessed our 
rebellion against this Spirit, and sought the renewal of 
it in us and in the whole Church, we shall no longer 
say, as we have been tempted to say, " The power 



256 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

of evil is supreme over the universe ; only there has 
been a special deliverance vouchsafed to us " ; we 
shall, from our hearts, abjure such blasphemous Mani- 
cheism ; we shall say boldly to all people among 
whom we go, " The Devil is not your master, he has no 
right to your worship : the God, in whom is light and no 
darkness at all, has claimed you and the whole creation 
for his own. His marvellous light is as much for you 
as for us. We only enjoy it upon the condition of re- 
nouncing all exclusive claim to it, upon the condition 
of bidding you enter into it." 

IX. Buddhism, then, like Hindooism and Mahome- 
tanism, has its lesson for us. We are debtors to all 
these in a double sense. Nor, I think, is it otherwise 
with those modern infidels whose objections I have 
been considering throughout this course. Our obliga- 
tions to them are not slight, if they have been sent to 
break down a low, grovelling notion we had formed of 
our own position and work ; if they have been em- 
ployed to convince us that human systems must indeed 
perish, one and all, that what survives must be some- 
thing of a much higher derivation, of a more perma- 
nent character. We owe them the deepest gratitude, if 
they have led us to ask ourselves whether there is any 
faith, and what kind of faith it is, which must belong, 
not to races or nations, but to mankind ; still more, if 
they have forced us to the conclusion, that the real 
test whether there be such a faith, and whether it has 
been made known to us, must be action, not argu- 
ment ; that if it exist, it must show that it exists ; that 
if it have power, it must put forth its power. So, in 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 257 

this nineteenth century, the opponents of Christianity 
will return to the maxim which the wisest of them 
announced in the first : " If this be of men, it will 
come to naught ; if it be of God, we cannot over- 
throw it." 

I have been anxious in these Lectures to show that 
I did regard this practical experiment of our faith as 
the really decisive one. In compliance with the direc- 
tions of Boyle, I sought for that which seemed to be 
the most prevailing form of unbelief in our day ; and I 
found it in the tendency to look upon all theology as 
having its origin in the spiritual nature and faculties of 
man. This was assumed to be the explanation of other 
systems, why not apply it to Christianity ? The ques- 
tions we have asked are, " Is it the adequate explana- 
tion of any system ? Do not all demand another 
ground than the human one ? Is not Christianity the 
consistent assertor of that higher ground ? Does it not 
distinctly and consistently refer every human feeling 
and consciousness to that ground ? Is it not for this 
reason able to interpret and reconcile the other re- 
ligions of the earth ? Does it not in this way prove 
itself to be, not a human system, but the Revelation, 
which human beings require ? " 

" Prove ! " you cry ^ " Yes, on paper ! It is easy 
to prove many things about human creatures when you 
are not actually dealing with them.'" Assuredly, most 
easy. It was of this that the other clauses of Boyle's 
will warned me. They said very significantly, " Your 
business is to urge upon your countrymen the duty of 
not proving Christianity upon paper ; but of entering 



258 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

into actual intercourse with Jews, Mussulmans, Hin- 
doos, Buddhists, for the purpose of showing that it is a 
reality." Accordingly, I have never lost sight of this 
object. My questions have been, " How may we bring 
Christianity into contact with the actual convictions of 
these different people ? How may we put it upon the 
broadest trial ? Where have other instruments and 
appliances failed ? for that is the point on which we 
would make this bear. Where may it most clearly 
prove its inefficiency, if it be inefficient ? " In no 
case have I wished to disguise any apparent symptoms 
of its failure. I have entreated Christians and infidels 
to investigate these symptoms, that they may ascertain 
the causes of them. And lest you should fancy, from 
the view I took of these systems, that I was recom- 
mending some new method of dealing with them, 
which could only be learnt and applied after a long 
discipline, and at last could scarcely be followed by 
simple ministers of the Gospel, I have endeavored to 
show you in this Lecture, that precisely the course I 
have suggested is that which the preachers of the Gos- 
pel in the first ages actually adopted, that our departures 
from it have arisen from want of simple faith ; that the 
discipline we require is especially one to restore this 
faith. And lest, from what has been just said about 
the unity of Christians, you should conclude that I sup- 
pose missions to the heathen should be deferred till 
some indefinite time when the nations of Christendom 
can make a simultaneous assault upon the outlying 
world, I would remind you that my reference to the 
first ages, and to the successful missionary efforts of 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 259 

every subsequent age, precludes such a notion. What 
nation of the earth owes its Church to a simultaneous 
effort among nations or among men ? If any one 
nation takes its stand upon its true ground as a mem- 
ber of that body whereof Christ is the Head, that 
nation becomes a witness to all Christian nations of 
their true Unity, if they care ever so little for it ; that 
nation can fulfil its own task of vindicating the truths 
which its heathen subjects confess, by imparting to 
them the truths which they want, though all the other 
Christian nations should smile or frown upon its en- 
deavors. Any Christian man who takes his stand upon 
the same ground of unity in the Church whereof Christ 
is the Head, who acts consistently with that position, 
fulfilling the office to which he is called, and not seek- 
ing some other to please himself, may become a wit- 
ness in every land to which he goes of the fellowship 
into which his baptism has brought him ; may in his 
words or life expound the principle of this fellowship ; 
may show how universal its privileges are, and how 
each may for himself partake of them. 

But I know that there must be many on whom the 
often-repeated words, " There are heathens at our 
doors, we ourselves are half heathens ; leave Buddhists 
and Mahometans till you have provided for these," will 
have an effect sufficient to destroy their interest in all 
such exhortations. One answer to these objections is 
well known, and has been sufficiently used. If Eng- 
lishmen did abstain rigidly from all intercourse with 
Mahometans, Hindoos, Buddhists, if no body of our 
countrymen were engaged in trading with other 



260 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

countries, or in conquering them, or in keeping 
possession of them, the interdiction of all spiritual 
communication might be judicious, — at all events 
possible. But as the points at issue are, what kind 
of communication shall we hold with these people, 
what kind of help or . protection shall we extend to 
them : if they are spiritual creatures, and as such must 
in some way be dealt with, then how ? — since this, I 
say, is the fair statement of the case, such appeals to 
our home sympathies seem rather capricious and rhe- 
torical than benevolent or sensible. But this is not the 
only reply which is suggested by our particular circum- 
stances ; or which lies in the nature of the subject 
itself. A faith which boasts to be for humanity cannot 
test its strength unless it is content to deal with men in 
all possible conditions. If it limits itself to England, 
it will adapt itself to the habits and fashions and preju- 
dices of England, of England too in a particular age. 
But doing this, it will never reach the hearts of Eng- 
lishmen. You say, " Try your Christianity upon the 
cotton-spinners of Manchester, upon the hardware-men 
of Birmingham ; if it fails with them, do you expect it 
will succeed in Persia and Thibet ? " We know it 
will fail, it must fail, in Birmingham and Manchester, if 
it addresses the people in those places mainly as spin- 
ners and workers in hardware. This has been the 
mistake we have continually made. We have looked 
upon these "hands" as created to work for us; we 
have asked for a religion which should keep the 
IP" Jjmds " in the state in which they will do most work 
ana giv^tr9He«it trouble. But it is found that they 



RELATIONS WITH CHRISTIANITY. 261 

are men who use these hands ; and that which is a 
religion for hands, is not one for men. Therefore it 
becomes more evident every day that there is a de- 
mand in Manchester and Birmingham for that which, 
till we understand human beings better, we cannot 
supply. To acquire that understanding, we need not 
grudge a journey to Persia or Thibet ; we need not 
think it an idle task to inquire what people want, who 
are not called to spin cotton or work in hardware, but 
who are creatures of the same kind with those who do. 
When thoughtful men say that a working age of the 
world is about to begin, they mean, I suppose, an 
age in which those essential qualities of humanity 
which belong to working men as much as to all others 
shall be more prized than the accidents by which one 
class is separated from another. Most important is it, 
then, to ascertain whether we are holding a faith which 
addresses us as members of a class, a class of fine 
gentlemen, philosophers, divines, or one which ad- 
dresses us as men, which explains the problems of our 
human life. Two centuries ago Boyle was led in deep 
anguish of spirit to consider that question for himself; 
for himself, and not I think without something of the 
like anguish, must each one of us consider it in this 
day. We are told that circumstances have changed, 
that our condition is a different one from his. Doubt- 
less, the saying is true ; circumstances are always 
changing ; but the necessities of man's being do not 
change. What was true of man generations ago, is 
true now. If our condition is different from that of 
our forefathers, the difference is this : we are come 



262 THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 

nearer to the great crisis of all controversies, there is 
less power of hiding ourselves from realities amidst 
shadows and appearances. Thanks be to God that 
such a time has come, terrible as it may be to many, 
nay, to all of us ! For this is the time which will show 
that His truth is not of man, neither by man : but that 
it is for men, here and everywhere. Only then when 
the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, — so speaks 
individual experience, so speaks the voice of history, — 
is it known assuredly that the Word of our God shall 
stand for ever. 



THE END. 




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